


Stolen Grace

by seademons



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Happy Ending, M/M, Organized Crime, Soul Selling, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2019-10-17 06:30:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 62,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17555138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seademons/pseuds/seademons
Summary: Technically, two hearts can't belong to the same person, unless one of them is strong enough to beat for two.





	1. When it happened

Blackness surrounded him, deathly cold, pushing its way into his mouth and nose to strangle him, to seize his lungs and swallow him down, even though his arms moved, and his legs kicked, and he fought for the surface, wherever it might’ve been, either up or down, he wasn’t sure. He didn’t know. His body moved frantically, twisting and flailing against the petrifying cold, unsure how to reach for safety, choking on the blackness, coughing it up only to have it seep further down his throat, suffocating. Terrifying. His eyes were open, but there was nothing to see; his legs moved, but there was nowhere to push against, no surface, no bottom. He was going to drown, and the knowledge of it reached him as his body sunk further into the unmoving water. The lake, mostly still, with a single spot moving louder than the rest would soon be covered by a smooth, even layer again, the surface a shiny black, like marble. He could see it, suddenly, as a heavy wave of acceptance crashed over him, and he stopped fighting against the inevitable. It’d be okay, he thought, and he felt it, too. He’d be okay. His eyes slipped closed, the cold numbed all, and the world was finally silent. 

He saw a boy sink into the darkness as he did.

One big, strong retch, and he vomited black water onto the riverbank, able to breathe now, finally, filling his lungs with cold air that seemed to shatter his insides. His arms were clutched to his chest, hands balled into fists, shaking from the cold, his skin shivering, his jaw rattling. He coughed some more, spitting deliberately now, alive enough to feel anything other than fear, despair and certain doom; enough to fucking  _ loathe _ the motherfucker who had pushed him over the guardrails and want him fucking dead. He was so fucking angry. He was so fucking scared.

“Roxas, holy shit.” 

Glancing up, he saw a pair of knees in black pants resting against the pebbles, pushing onto them with the weight of the body above. Up further, and Axel stared down at him, eyes shining green under the moonlight, both hands drawn up to tangle into his dripping wet hair. His entire body, soaked through, exactly how Roxas felt. He had never seen this amount of concern on his friend’s face before, and was Axel even supposed to feel it? Maybe it was involuntary, how one’s body often jerks in bed from a recurring dream of falling down a clocktower. 

Axel’s career would’ve suffered had he died tonight. 

On shaky arms and trembling legs, he got up, pushing onto the sandy pebbles, having his feet skid once or twice as he went, though he wasn’t completely unassisted on that; Axel had him by the arm very quickly, a strong grip that pulled him up to both feet, however slippery the muddy rocks were under his soles. He stood, and, with arms still folded against himself in desperate need of warmth, had Axel help him away from the lake, up the steps that led back onto the bypass above. He glanced at it in passing, up at the bridge where they had been jumped just moments ago, and down, down at the water below, the distance between the two, the long gap that hadn’t felt long at all. His teeth clinked, and he shivered, turning his face away from the bridge. 

His entire body felt like it had been run over by an eighteen wheeler as they slowly climbed the steps together, Axel practically carrying him with an arm across his shoulders, coiled just under his pit, pulling him up. It fucking hurt, drew all breath from his lungs, but wasn’t enough to make him pass out, so he just kind of whimpered all the way up to street level, holding back anything more humiliating than that. For once, he was glad for the numbness of the cold, even if it wasn’t absolute, and had already begun to fade. 

In the warmth of the car, it seemed that everything only hurt more now that he was pretty much being defrosted and could start to feel his fingertips again. He leaned against the door, unable to hold himself upright, his head tapping lightly onto the passenger window with his tremors, the world outside blurring quickly past, coloring his skin in dim hues of blue and yellow. Axel was driving fast. He closed his eyes once, feeling his breathing start to wane, and his chest constrict, skin pulsing under his shirt, warm from the pain, soaked through to the bone. His body ached everywhere, but nothing felt as bad as the shattering tightness that enveloped his lungs and kept him from breathing. 

Suddenly, his eyes shot open.

“The boy.” He blurted out, turning to glance at his friend, the vision from earlier now materialized into his head. “Where’s the boy?”

From behind the wheel, Axel simply passed him a quick look, mostly focused on the road ahead. 

“What boy?” 

“In the lake, there was a boy. A brunette, sinking, like me. He was in there.” His teeth rattled as he spoke. “We gotta save him.” 

“There was no one else there, Roxas. You were alone in the lake.” 

“No, he was  _ there, _ he was…” He wasn’t drowning. The boy hadn’t drown, he had only sunk, kind of drifted down into the bottomless darkness of the lake, still as a corpse, accepting. He had seen him, he had, he… Had he? Frowning, he turned away from the redhead, his eyes unfocused ahead of himself. 

“You’ll be home soon, man.” Axel reassured. “You’ll be okay.” 

Upon arrival, the first thing that he did was kick Axel out and draw himself a scalding hot bath. He didn’t need him, not anymore. He’d be fine. He got in the tub with all of his clothes on, and it felt like being submerged in lava, but he persisted, having breath finally reach his lungs now, in short spurts this time, as if panting. It  _ hurt; _ the more his chest moved for a draft, the worse it hurt, pounding against his ribs, which, in all honesty, were probably broken, but not that he really cared. It didn’t matter. 

Soaking into the warmth of the bath, he thought of that boy again, sinking, too. It could’ve been only an image in his head, like Axel had hinted at; something that he had made up, somehow, in the middle of drowning. Maybe that had been his personalized version of watching his own life flash before his eyes, or any other excuse for a fake vision, but, still, it bothered him. He had more important things to worry about at the moment, sure, but the uncertainty of that vision stuck to the back of his head regardless, and, of course, manifested in his dreams that night. The water, the cold, the fear, all enveloping, omnipresent, and that boy, too, in the middle of it all, somewhere. Not drowning, just sinking. In the dream, he was too afraid to reach for him, panicking too much to attempt anything else other than to save himself, and, in the end, it was Axel who pulled him out and woke him up, heart racing, breathing ragged. Sweat prickled at his forehead and his chest seized in pain. 

He didn’t think that this dream would become a thing, that he would have it every night for a month, that he wouldn’t be able to sleep normally for so long. That he’d relive the worst moment of his life so many times over, that he’d get to feel that overwhelming amount of hopelessness and panic and fear so fucking often. Every fucking night. He thought it’d go away soon, that he was only dreaming of it because it had happened so recently, but, after an entire month of this bullshit, he was starting to worry. More than that, it put him on edge; severely sleep-deprived and jumpy at everything. Axel had already started to catch onto it by how drastically his performance in solo missions had dropped, and how heavily he had started to lean onto his partners during co-op. Roxas had never been easy to sneak up on, always fast on his feet, reflexes honed sharp, but, now, even regular enemies managed to make him shrink into himself and run for cover, scared out of his mind. At the very least, he thought, nothing had been bad enough to make him scream. 

Axel had started to watch him a lot more closely over the last few weeks; green eyes tracking his every movement in the kitchen, in the living room, down the hallways, evaluative and thoughtful, always from a distance, always when he wasn’t really looking. He hadn’t told anyone about the dreams yet, and Axel hadn’t asked, either, but, based on the careful attention that he had been getting from his friend, he guessed that his secret wouldn’t last much longer. He didn’t care, though; at this point, he just wanted the black, inky darkness to leave the inside of his retinas, and, maybe, Axel would even be able to help him with it. He was willing to give that a try. 

“I know you know.” He said, approaching the topic first for the upper hand rather than letting Axel catch him unprepared later on. It was  _ his _ dream, and he’d get to decide how to talk about it. “You think I don’t notice you watching, but I do. You’re not very discreet.” 

Axel leaned back onto his seat, head tilted to the side in good humor, very clearly interested in this unusual approach. He had the ghost of a smile on his face. 

“What do I know?” 

The sitting room was silent. At this hour, everyone was either out on missions or sleeping early. 

“That something’s wrong.” He answered, voice quiet, watching the light amusement on Axel’s face fade into blank impassiveness. 

“I just hope you didn’t tell Saix about it.” He continued. “But I’m pretty sure you already have, so.” 

Axel’s eyes slipped from his face at that, flicking to the side for only a second, the confirmation to his conjecture. Of course Saix knew; he hadn’t been assigned to any real missions since that night, only recon for a month straight. It was far too obvious. 

“He had to know.” 

No, he didn’t, but Roxas wouldn’t fight his friend on this, not when Axel was so close to their boss, practically his second in command. The third in command, he guessed, in the overall chain of echelons here, even if Xemnas would’ve never accepted it. 

“It’s fine.” He shrugged, walking over to take an empty seat by the redhead. “Doesn’t change anything.” Only confirmed what he already knew, that Axel put his friendship with Saix before everything else. 

Next to him, Axel sat upright a little, shifting closer an inch. 

“What’s going on?” 

Looking up, he noticed how close they were to each other now, the light crease in between Axel’s brows, the worry in his greens. For a Nobody, Axel displayed emotions very convincingly, though he recalled, rather faintly, a conversation with the redhead about Nobodies feeding all sentiment off of their Somebody’s feelings, or what had been left of them after the end. The very last remnants of their human hearts. Maybe Axel just had a closer touch to his own than many others, and remembered what it was like to feel better than most. It’d explain his desperation by the lake, too. 

“I keep thinking about it.” He confessed, still speaking quietly, so his voice wouldn’t travel too far into the room. “That night. The lake. Everything.” 

Axel swallowed dry. Absently, he watched the Adam’s apple bob. 

“It’s been keeping you awake at night, huh?” 

His eyes met up with Axel’s greens again, still concerned, but bearing a hint of something else now, too, softer and more mellow than before. Pity, maybe, but, no, not so condescending. Not that. 

“Too obvious?” 

Axel shrugged, his head tilting in a self-explanatory manner. 

“To me, yeah. Tell-tale signs.” 

“And to everyone else?” 

“Only Saix’s onto it.” 

He hummed. 

“Maybe you should talk to someone about that.” Axel suggested, almost sounding insensitive, but in his way of trying to keep from trespassing unset and unspoken friendship boundaries. Roxas knew it meant he cared more than he wanted others to know. 

“Well, I’m talking to you, aren’t I?” 

“I mean someone more qualified than me.” 

“Who’s more qualified for this than the person who was actually there? Who literally dragged me out of the water? You’re in my dreams, too.” 

Axel gave him a look at that, something between shock and morbid fascination. 

“What?” 

“Yeah; over and over, you pull me out of the water. That’s always when I wake up.” 

Axel didn’t say anything to that, only watched him with two greens that flicked back and forth between his eyes, perplexed, showing his bewilderment. In silence, Roxas stared back at the face that faked emotions so well, so precisely. He wanted to credit that to the hours spent analyzing movies and memorizing human facial expressions through a screen, but he couldn’t do that to Axel, not when, in reality, Axel must’ve gotten it from his countless interactions with actual, real people. There was a reason why Axel was always the one sent on outside missions. 

“I can’t do much for you.” Axel said, his tone resigned. His shoulders even dropped with it. 

Roxas gave him a look. 

“I’m not asking anything from you, dude. I know there’s nothing to be done, I just…” He shrugged. “I wanted you to know, I guess.”

Axel nodded his understanding, though the crease on his brow remained. He must’ve still been thinking it all through, the gears in his head always turning. 

“Alright. Come to me whenever you need to, yeah?” 

He knew Axel meant that noncommittally, whenever he felt like talking, whenever the dreams were giving him more trouble than none and he wanted to say a word about it, because no one else would really get it, no one would  _ really _ understand, but the metamorphosis that his memories went through and drove him out of bed wasn’t his fault. He didn’t mean for it to get worse, or for anything to change. He never reached for the boy, and Axel always saved him in the end, so when he  _ did _ reach for the boy, Axel’s grasp missed him. He swam through the darkness using all of his strength and watched the boy slink further and further away, deeper down, far from the surface. It was terrifyingly dark, and a lost cause, but he kept on pushing, for some reason; kept on swimming down, being swallowed by the cold and enveloped in black water to the loss of his last breath. Any second now, Axel would pull him out, he thought, and hoped for it, against his own will to follow the darkness, to follow the boy, but, this time, Axel didn’t do it. Axel couldn’t reach him, and the cold overpowered him, darkness overtook his vision, ice closed around his throat. He drowned. 

He woke up with a loud, deep gasp that pushed him to sit up, panting hard, his face wet and his heart hammering through his ribs. They were still tender, and hurt from the sudden movement, but Roxas couldn’t help the panic in his throat and the fear in his veins. He drew both arms around himself, quickly, shivering something awful, holding himself steady in an attempt at comfort. It only worked to a certain extent, only while he caught his breath and slowed his heartbeat back to normal, but the overwhelming loneliness that carried over from his subconscious remained, and couldn’t be quelled so easily. He breathed, allowing himself to feel the pain that seized his chest and the emptiness that ached his soul, tears blurring his vision, dripping from his face. He sobbed, eyes squeezed shut as his heart hurt terribly. 

He had never felt something like this, so strong and so horrible. It terrified him; it pushed him out of bed, out of his bedroom entirely to seek the first hint of human connection that he could get, even though he was surrounded by soulless husks. He dashed down the hallway, a single shadow moving swiftly under the moonlight that filtered in through the tall, wide windows lining the right wall, and stopped by the very last door. Would Axel even want to see him at this hour? No, obviously not, but, right now, he found out that he didn’t care. He needed to break the image of complete abandonment from his mind, needed to reassure himself that Axel still cared, that Axel  _ had _ saved him, that Axel would always be there to save him. He needed it, even if, deep inside, he already knew all of this. He had to reawaken that, to have the nebula of his dreams leave his consciousness and make him see reason again. He knocked on the door as his heart leapt for his throat.

“Axel.” He called, voice low, trying not to wake anyone. “Axel, open up. Please.” 

Nothing. Drowning in silence, he knocked again, more desperate now, louder. 

_ “Axel.” _ Just short of shouting it. “It’s--”

The door opened. In his surprise, he even gasped. 

The darkness of the night made it hard to see, but he was still able to catch the scowl in between Axel’s brows, how pissed he looked to have been woken up this late. This early? Roxas couldn’t tell. Guilt rose from his stomach to place a knot in his throat. He was just about to apologize with all of his soul when Axel beat him to the punch, speaking over him.

“You okay?” 

Surprisingly, there was no hint of anger in Axel’s voice at all. In fact, he spoke very softly, unable to hide the concern from his tone. 

Roxas shook his head. 

“The dream changed.” He explained quickly, the words running over one another. “You didn’t save me, you weren’t there, the boy fell in and I followed him, and you didn’t catch me, you didn’t reach me, you--” 

Axel cut him off with a shush, one hand heavy on his shoulder and the other cupping his face, grabbing his jaw, really, he wasn’t sure why, but his heart raced from it, and he stopped talking. Wide-eyed, he watched the way Axel bent a little to be more at eye-level with him, the hand on his face warming up his skin. 

“Hey.” Axel cooed, softer than was characteristic of him. “You’re okay, you’re right here. I’m right here. The dreams aren’t real.” 

His eyes watered again. It was stupid, but this was exactly what he needed. He nodded, his gaze down at the ground now, his mind taking in the soothing feeling that Axel’s presence brought along with it. The very one that he had wanted from all of this. The hand on his jaw swiped a thumb across his cheek, then slipped away. 

“You’ll be okay.” 

He rubbed at the tears before they fell. 

“Hey, uh.” A pause. His eyes met up with Axel’s, showing his captured attention to make the redhead continue. “Look, if you want to spend the night over, I don’t mind taking the couch. At least you won’t be by yourself.” 

Axel had a couch in his room. An entire ass couch in his room, apparently, which was very surprising, but, on second thought, probably not unforeseeable due to his connections. Still, Roxas reeled from it, and kind of held onto that feeling to avoid feeling something else that came with the invitation, something deeper and more shameful that wanted to bring color to his cheeks. He had never seen the inside of Axel’s room, or anybody else’s, for that matter, and the connotations of that weren’t lost on him. Not that Axel meant it in that way, not ever, not in a million years, but it still didn’t stop him from thinking about it. Axel’s room. 

He honestly didn’t know where that came from. 

Speechless, he simply nodded his response, and followed the redhead inside, where the couch was the first thing that he saw, between the bed and a television mounted on the wall. A television. His jaw only didn’t drop, because, he supposed, material possessions came with the job. He only had a bed and a wardrobe in his barren room, but, then again, he wasn’t all buddy-buddy with Saix, and had only been recruited for about a year. Axel must’ve been here for multiple years. A writing desk was pushed against a wall and the wardrobe stood directly across from it, by the other wall, the couch and rug in between them. Roxas walked in timidly, and watched as Axel turned the lock on the door. His heart skipped at it. 

“You can have the bed.” Axel spoke already halfway to the couch, a hand extended to indicate it. “Make yourself at home, and if you need me, just wake me up.” 

The bed was messy, with covers rumpled up and pillows tossed around, and he could almost picture the panicked way that Axel had jumped out of it a mere minute ago to answer the door. A pang in his chest, he felt bad for that, but decided against apologizing, because he had needed this very badly. He didn’t know where his night would’ve taken him had Axel not opened the door, and he didn’t want to think about it. Climbing shyly in bed, he covered himself up to the neck, and buried his face on a pillow, suddenly enveloped in Axel’s scent,  the one before the cologne, the one of soap and sweat that reminded him of his first few weeks here, training with the redhead, sharpening his instincts. His eyes closed and he breathed in, deep, until his chest ached enough to keep him still. 

In a silent cocoon, he slept, and, that night, had no dreams at all. No lake, no boy, no drowning, nothing, only the blissful blankness of his own mind, finally at good rest. He noticed this first thing in the morning, eyes cracking open to glance at the room around himself, the locked door and high ceiling above. He twisted within the covers to try a look at the couch, to maybe spot the redhead sleeping there still, but all he could see was the back of it and nothing else. Up, the reflection of the television only showed the top of the backrest and the bed, so he had to resort to sound. 

“Axel?” He called, quiet and soft. 

A movement, the shifting of fabric, and his friend’s face popped up from above the backrest of the couch, eyes fixed squarely onto his own. 

“You good?” 

“Yes.” He moved to sit up on the bed with the covers still wrapped around himself, now able to see Axel better. “No dreams last night.” 

A glad little smile tugged at the corners of Axel’s face. 

“That’s great news, buddy.” 

Maybe this was the answer, he thought. This was the answer to the end of the dreams, and it  _ was; _ he tried sleeping in his own bed the next night, his mind and thoughts fixed on Axel’s room, on Axel’s scent, on Axel’s grip around his wrist that pulled him out of the water to maybe emulate the safety that he had felt while laying in Axel’s bed the other night, but, even though it drifted him off to sleep rather easily, it wasn’t enough to stop the dreams. It reverted his memories back to normal, though, back to when the boy sunk and Axel fished him out, but the loneliness was still there, the bone-shattering cold was still there. He still woke up with a jolt, heart pounding and tears prickling at his eyes. Breathless, afraid, alone, just like that day, just like in the lake. 

He jumped out of bed and scurried off to knock on Axel’s door again. 

“I’m sorry.” He blurted out when Axel answered, sleep on his face and a crease on his brow. “I can’t be alone, I can’t do it, I can’t sleep by myself.” 

“Come in.” 

Axel took the couch again, and he slept another fulfilling night under the covers, on a mattress that didn’t belong to him, with a pillow that smelled of pepper and cinnamon, surrounded by safety. He woke up so relieved the next morning that his heart had no space left for him to feel bad about it. Not that he really  _ felt _ it, more like he had something buried deep within that stopped him from acting like a complete jackass all the time, that told him compassion was valuable, that simulated feelings so well sometimes that he had almost started to question it, but it had never been very present, and didn’t use to have so much pull before. The remnants of his Somebody’s feelings, he knew was the cause of this, and didn’t appreciate the way they had grown stronger with the fall, the way they twisted his insides and killed anything good that might’ve touched his heart a little bit ever since. All he experienced these days were horrid, gut-wrenching emotions that left him tense and paranoid, jumping at the first little sound, running from the demons of his own imagination. It was exhausting, and the only remedy that he saw for it was a night’s rest in Axel’s bed. 

Stupid, ridiculous, but it worked every single time. After their missions, late at night, he started asking Axel whether he could sleep over or not, and Axel never rejected him. He’d take the couch, it was fine, Axel reassured him, and never made a big deal out of it, despite how important it really was for Roxas to be there. He was shameless about it, he knew, but that wouldn’t stop him from inviting himself over every night, not when Axel was always nice to him. If the ghost of his emotions would go back to being dull and dismissable, he reasoned to himself, then maybe he wouldn’t have to do this, but the lake had changed everything, had heightened the resonance within his chest, and kept him from going back to normal. He didn’t  _ want _ to feel any of this, but couldn’t really help it. All he could do was avoid it in Axel’s bed and hope that it’d die down eventually, which, after a while, it did. A little bit. The dreams didn’t reach him in Axel’s room, and he soon forgot about them, very often in Axel’s presence during the day, on missions or simply following him around the building, and always within Axel’s vicinity at night, where the demons couldn’t get him. He slept fine, and slowly forgot about this whole lake deal, even if he still wasn’t all himself. 

Sitting by the redhead a couple of weeks later, always as his shadow these days, he listened to Axel entertain the crowd with the exaggerated tales of his expeditions in the outside world, how he fooled a politician or tricked a doctor with his cunning human likeness. The other members listened with great interest, some awed, some curious, most of them jealous as Axel went on, gesticulating with his hands, nearly whacking Roxas in the face this close to him on the couch. One particular close call had Axel dropping an arm across Roxas’ shoulders instead, which triggered a weird, fucked up déjà vu that played before his eyes, a million visions of the two of them sitting in this exact same way, though it wasn’t really them, it was someone else, but, no, he felt like he had done this before. They had sat here, exactly like this, a million times. He knew it; his heart hammered into his chest to prove it. He couldn’t think of a specific memory, but he felt it, the familiarity of this moment, pushing up against Axel’s side, the weight of the arm on his shoulders. 

It was a sort of high that had him thinking about it all day. Not sure where it had come from, but left as soon as Axel’s arm dropped from around him, and the world resumed normalcy. 

He tried to replicate that on the following days, tried to get Axel to do it again, to make sure that he wasn’t going crazy, that he hadn’t imagined it all, but wasn’t sure how to without being weird about it, so it took him a while. His approaches were awkward at first, sitting a little too close or walking with half his body in Axel’s personal space, but Axel never seemed to really mind it, which was support enough to have him keep on trying. 

Eventually, of course, he backed off and tried something else, a better, more thoughtful approach. Instead of pushing their physical boundaries, he made himself more vocal, played around a little more, slowly turned their interactions a casual degree more physical; a punch on the arm, a playful shove, a shoulder push to go with some laughter, and it worked. Axel pushed him back just as playfully, laughed just as much, had some fun, and eventually did the arm thing, flooding his mind with memories again, but not as strongly this time around. Not as prevalent. It was still there, making his heart race and his brain skyrocket, but not like the first time. He must’ve built some resistance to it overtime, he guessed, on this short meanwhile. 

Still, the ground coverage that he got with Axel in terms of physical affection remained, and that was a nice side effect; it went from playful shoves to an arm around his shoulders every now and then to Axel brushing hair out of his face to ask him what was wrong. The attention was nice, and, admittedly, he kind of ate it up. 

About a month and a half after the fall, Saix finally gave him a real mission that, for once, didn’t involve a nice, mostly safe stroll around an unknown area with a random member of the Organization. A month and a half. Ultimately, he knew that Axel was the one who made the call for most of his missions, given the trainee program and all, but the fact that even his unassisted missions had involved recon said something about Axel’s pull on his friend Saix. Not that it mattered anymore, though, because, obviously, Axel thought he was well enough to fight now, and he made a point not to fuck it up today. He was fine; the ribs weren’t as tender anymore, and could hold up practice well by now, so a real mission should go swimmingly, especially by Axel’s side, because of  _ course _ his debut after the incident was with Axel, he had never doubted that. In truth, he had missed being in action, even if it had gotten him pushed off a bridge last time. 

“You never caught them, did you?” He asked in the car, eyes locked onto the side of Axel’s face. 

“Who are you talking about?” 

“The people that jumped us.” 

A smirk threatened to break through Axel’s nonchalant facade, but only managed to tug at his lips a bit. 

“Oh, I caught them alright. Ansem’s men.” 

“Who’s that?” 

“No one, now.” 

He squinted. Axel had gone out and caught the motherfucker who had pushed him and hadn’t even thought of letting him know. 

“Did you drown him?” 

The question came out on a whim, a little sudden, making his skin crawl with how macabre it sounded. Axel gave him a quick sidelong glance at that. 

“No. I know it would’ve been cathartic for you to hear a yes, but I didn’t drown him.” 

He wanted to ask how it happened, if the guy had suffered, if he had gurgled on his own blood just before drawing his final breath, if Axel had made a point of making him feel exactly how Roxas had that night, desperate and alone and utterly fucking terrified. He wanted to know if the inescapable darkness felt as cold as the lake, and if it shattered one’s bones inside out, but he didn’t ask. One question was enough, and he was very grateful for the carried out vengeance that he needn’t have asked for, even if he didn’t have all of the details that he wanted. This way, he could picture it any which way that made him feel better, even if, knowing Axel, the culprit had probably just bled to death. Not many would’ve done this kind of justice for him, and he was very glad for Axel’s friendship. 

Today’s mission was a relatively simple one, with Axel carrying the bulk of it while he did his best with the comparatively small amount that had been delegated to him. Truthfully, it was the first after a good while, so he cut himself some slack for not being able to take on much more than that when he normally would. As consolation, at least, he didn’t fuck it up, and was rewarded with a small break at the nearby park before having to report back. 

They had been here a couple of times before to breathe in the crisp, clean mountain air and unwind a little amid the green of the nature, looking up at the birds, enjoying the breeze, except, this time, it felt different. Walking along the shaded path that led deep into the park, something called out to him, a memory, on the brink of unveil, like a word that had slipped his mind but was on the tip of the tongue. The further they went, the louder his thoughts became, jumbled up in a mess of fake memories and near-coherent recollections that only served to confuse him and drown out Axel’s voice, whatever it was that his friend had been telling him about. His vision contorted, blurred, doubled, and his steps faltered, made him bump into Axel by accident, even though he couldn’t actually see him right now, his eyes set far off and his brain in shambles. It hurt his chest, made him nauseous. He squeezed his eyes shut, so maybe the nebula in his head would clear out, and the world would stop spinning. To his surprise, it kind of worked. The chirping of the birds slowly reached his ears again, Axel’s voice a gentle coo in the middle of it all. 

“Maybe you should sit down.” 

He opened his eyes and the world was one again, with Axel standing right beside him, a crease in his brow and an arm across Roxas’ shoulders. This far in, the arm thing barely worked anymore, didn’t give him that first high or the multiple visions, though, right now, something very close to that seemed to reach out for him instead. It made this park feel very familiar for different reasons, not because he and Axel had been here a few times before, but because of something else, a feeling that he had come here a lot in the past, a feeling that something special had happened here. It pulled him to break off from Axel’s side and take a branching path on the left, one that, in real life, he had never taken before, but that he knew by heart somehow; knew that it’d lead to a relatively small tree, bent on one side, sturdy enough to hold the weight of someone like him. He walked straight to it, aware of Axel’s presence following him a feet or so behind, and took a seat on the trunk, where it bent enough for it. 

He’d done this a million times. 

Axel approached him by the base of the trunk, and leaned against it, the low of his back on it, a hand resting in the space between the two of them. Yes, just like it had happened; his mind knew so, and had him, as an instinct, a familiar motion, place his hand atop Axel’s, fingers curling underneath it for a grip. The contact set his heart off, a multitude of visions flashing before his retinas, exactly as it had happened, right here, on this very spot. He could barely fucking breathe with how fast his heart raced, lungs drafting in until it hurt, too expansive, exploding warmth from the very center of his chest down to the end of his fingertips, singeing Axel’s skin under his palm. Axel’s hand showed a slight resistance to the touch, but he kept it in place, his grip steadfast, holding onto the best high yet. Way better than the arm one. 

He could’ve sworn his chest was about to burst right open. 

The high lasted a good long while; they left the park, drove back to the building, retired to Axel’s room and he was still thinking about it, his heart still beating deeply from it, even though they weren’t holding hands anymore, even though they had only done it for a minute, which, to him, had felt like an eternity lived through a thousand lives. He nestled into bed, covered to the ears in Axel’s blankets, face pushed into the pillow, inhaling his scent. The overbearing cinnamon had started to fade from how frequently he slept here now, but he could still smell it, faintly, most of it pulled from memory. It made his heart skip a beat, but, concurrently, soothed him right to sleep. This was the first time that Axel’s general presence, out of touching range, had made him feel anything other than absolute tranquility. 

He knew what holding hands with a man meant, and didn’t push it a lot. The high was good, yes, it was almost intoxicating, sure, but not enough to completely blind him from what he was doing. He had already taken Axel’s hand once, and, for as much as it had felt like total heaven, he had to control himself. He didn’t touch Axel in front of the others, or even really brought up what had happened, and Axel refrained from doing either of those things, too, so they co-existed in harmony for a while; Axel would usually be drafted to missions in the morning, he’d be drafted for ones in the afternoon, and they’d meet up in Axel’s room at night, to share a space. It was fine, and Axel didn’t question him about it. 

Still, he couldn’t say that he didn’t think about the park everyday; how he had felt, the visions, the infinite knowledge that they seemed to have given him. He felt like such a wiser man now, after all of that, even if nothing factual had really happened. He started to catch himself watching Axel’s hands all the time, gesturing when he talked, on the wheel when he drove, flipping over a dagger, closing around a handgun, and he needed it. He wanted it in his own, for real this time, a grip that held him back, and he thought about it. He plotted it, how he’d do it next, how he’d make it happen. By now, he didn’t care what it looked like, or what Axel thought of it; if it seemed like a pass, if it  _ was _ one, if making a pass on his best friend was really such an awful thing to do. All he had gathered so far was that Axel never minded anything that he did, that he was free to act however which way he wanted to as long as he didn’t jeopardize their missions, meaning that he had no real reason to fear rejection, because it simply seemed like an impossibility with Axel. He had never received such a treatment from the redhead, and didn’t think that that would change now. 

He put his suppositions to the test a couple of days later, downtown, in the hustle and bustle that rush hour provided the city at night, with thousands of people filling up the sidewalks and hundreds of cars forming an ugly sea of anxiety and noise less than six inches away from them. Axel shouldered his way through the crowd, the lapels of his coat flipped up to shield his neck from the wind as Roxas followed right behind, an entire foot shorter than his friend, an easy target to be swallowed up by the masses. Axel kept glancing back at him over a shoulder to make sure that he was still there, clearly distressed from the prospect of losing sight of him, so Roxas made it easy for the both of them and reached forward, took Axel’s hand in his own, held on tight. To his surprise, his grip was met with one just as firm, if not more so. 

His heart pounded, he felt like a time-traveler, but the visions didn’t completely cloud him over this time, only brought forth images of the many times that he had taken Axel’s hand before, reaching out for him like this, being held onto so strongly, even though, he was sure, this was only their second time doing it. These memories couldn’t have been his, but they made his chest fill up with something so warm, so calming, but at the same time so exciting, that he didn’t really care who they belonged to. Maybe they were fragments of his past life as a human, somehow, if he and Axel even knew each other back then, and this was only their fated reencounter. That could’ve been the absolute truth, as well as utter bullshit, and he wouldn’t know; all that he knew for a fact was that holding Axel’s hand felt good, being around Axel’s general presence felt good, and Axel himself made him feel good, so nothing else really mattered; the truth only catered to him on the down-lows. 

“You remember your human life, don’t you?” He asked in the car, on the way back from all the noise, just as they crossed the bridge. “You have memories from back then?” 

“A few, yeah.” 

“Do you think we used to know each other?” 

Staring straight at the road ahead, Axel scowled. 

“I don’t think so. I would’ve remembered you.” 

What if I remember you?, he almost said, but swallowed it instead, because it wasn’t correct. It wasn’t real fact; he remembered actions, he remembered living through certain things that gave him pleasure and made his heart sing, but not necessarily with someone in particular. He didn’t remember Axel, not really, only some of the things that they did together; that someone did to somebody else, actually, that two anonymous people had lived through together, and that, he was sure, weren’t either of them. It felt as if he had stolen someone’s memories, somehow, and he didn’t care to return them. Not yet. 

“Would you?” He asked. “Are you sure?” 

“I’m sure.” 

This confirmed it, then. 

“I think I have someone else’s memories in my head.” 

He saw the careful look that Axel gave him at that, one second too long, one glance away from the road, and then straight back at it. 

“How?” 

“I don’t know how, I just think I do, because I remember things that I never did, and places that I’ve never been to.” 

“Maybe you did those things when you had a heart.” 

“No, I don’t remember anything from my past life. This is not it, it’s different, only happens when I’m doing something, and I feel like I’ve done it before, even if I haven’t.  _ Especially _ if I haven’t.” 

“Like what?” 

“Like--” Holding hands, but he stopped himself, mouth quickly shut and cheeks burning. They didn’t talk about that, it was their unspoken rule. “Like when we visit a place and I think I’ve been there before. Like a hyperrealistic déjà vu.” 

“A déjà vécu, you mean.” 

“I don’t know what that is.” 

“It’s what you just described, feeling like you’ve done something that you never have. Like you’ve lived through something that didn’t actually happen.” 

“Yes, that’s exactly what it is! But why do I feel like it did happen, just not to me?” 

Axel shrugged. 

“It’s just your mind playing tricks on you.” Another quick glance thrown in his direction, a lot more careless this time around. “Maybe you need some rest.” 

“I don’t, I’m fine.” In fact, he had never slept so well. 

Of course, after this, he didn’t let the hand holding die so quickly, not when Axel hadn’t admonished him for it. In truth, from the way that the redhead had held onto his hand so strongly on the street, he only felt more encouraged now. He didn’t do it at the building, though, or in front of anyone that they knew, but kept it something that they only did away from the others, in missions, usually out in public, under the moonlight. They’d walk side-by-side, a little too close, brushing knuckles together, and he’d take Axel’s hand in his to keep him in sight, to feel the high, to have his heart skip a beat and shoot that welcoming warmth up his veins. He still didn’t know what that was about, or why it made him feel more than he probably should as a Nobody, but he honestly didn’t care. It was good, it felt good, and he’d hang onto it before it should invariably wane and disappear like the one before. 

On a particularly slow day, while he waited for Axel to come back from the field, he wondered if the arm thing, or the hand thing, worked with other people, too, or if Axel was the key to it. If he really needed to bother Axel at all with this stuff. Intrigued, he went for a walk around the building, looking for the first familiar face that he knew, anyone that he had talked to more than once before. No one here was very close to him, but some were less like strangers than others, for example, Demyx, the musician, and Saix, his boss. On a very clear thought, however, he decided against trying this kind of stuff with his boss, not only because of the guy’s status in the organization, but mostly due to his friendship with Axel. Anything that Roxas said to him he knew would end up reaching Axel at some point, and vice-versa, so he sought out the musician instead, solely because this was the kind of experiment that he didn’t want Axel to know about. He just wouldn’t get it. 

To his luck, Demyx was coming up the stairs right when he stepped into the hallway. The blonde gave him a brief smile on his way further into the building, possibly to report back from a mission, but he blocked the doorway with two nimble steps.

“Hey, Demyx, are you busy?” 

“No, not really. What’s up?” 

“Can I see your hand?” 

The question got him a strange look in reply, but Demyx didn’t exactly refuse to do it. For as weirded out as he seemed to have been, curiosity must’ve taken the best of him, because he offered Roxas his gloved hand anyway. Roxas grabbed it with a small jerk and faked a handshake to cover this whole thing up with, so it wouldn’t be all weird. No high, only a small resonance deep inside his chest, very similar to how feelings used to affect him before the lake. Demyx played along with the handshake, giving him a friendly grin that he forced himself to return. 

He guessed Axel really was the key, then. 

With this thought in mind, he walked back to Axel’s bedroom, pushing the door open without a knock because he practically lived here now, letting himself in as if he owned the place. It was only when he took a step in and his eyes fell on Axel’s bare chest that he stopped in his tracks, petrified, his blood frozen in his veins. It was completely inappropriate, but he couldn’t help the way that his gaze dropped down immediately, right where the towel hung low on his friend’s hips, just to make sure that it was there. That was what he told himself. 

Axel stood by the wardrobe, fresh out of the shower, it seemed; olive skin glistening under the soft, yellow light, drawing Roxas’ blues to the designs that covered a good portion of his body, a few on his biceps, some on his ribs, snaking from his back and ending on his hips. He didn’t know that Axel had tattoos, or that they hugged his biceps so well, always hidden under black clothes that unshaped his thick waist, his firm stomach, the shadow of hair that connected his navel to the towel, and Roxas promptly turned around, slamming the door behind himself. 

No. Absolutely not. He shut his eyes, heart racing, hoping to anyone that would listen that Axel wouldn’t be mad at him, that this wasn’t the beginning of their downfall, that Icarus hadn’t finally reached the sun. He had pushed too far, he knew so, because the image of Axel’s big pectorals, the ripples of his stomach, the tattoo that decorated his side and flirted with his ribs were burned on the back of his eyelids, and would consume all of his thoughts now, the only thing on his mind. It brought a memory with it, something, not a memory, a feeling, a gut feeling of touching that chest and grabbing that waist and Roxas couldn’t fucking shake it off. It was strong, it enveloped him, it pulled a fire from inside of him that couldn’t be put out so easily, he knew, he felt it, and he was so fucked, because the owner of his memories had definitely slept with Axel before, and he could see that right behind his eyes. No, not Axel, someone else, but the feeling was the same. The need to reach out and touch him was the same. 

He covered his face with both hands, rubbing the heels into his eyes in a desperate attempt to change how he felt inside, how the fire burned and warmed him up and closed his throat with the need to act on it. To go back inside and indulge himself on someone else’s body. It was so fucking wrong that he would’ve been sick had his feelings not been completely enraptured by something else, far stronger than this, with the sort of pull that couldn’t be broken off so easily. 

Behind him, the door suddenly opened, and he jumped about five feet into the air on his way to turn around and face it. Axel, fully covered now, stared down at him, brows slightly furrowed, the shirt he wore a size too small; it hugged his biceps and stretched across his chest and Roxas wished he’d worn something else. 

“Hey, chill. It’s all good. Come in.” 

No, no, but he went in anyway, of course he did. Of course he would. Axel locked the door behind him and it took all of himself to not think much of that. He did it every night, and nothing ever happened, it meant nothing, he was stupid; without a second glance at his friend, Roxas marched toward the bed and slipped right under the covers, this time letting them conceal his entire body, from head to toe, in Axel’s scent, which, he came to realize, a second too late, that this wasn’t his best idea. It didn’t really help. He stuck his head out to breathe something less infatuating and saw Axel leaning against the couch, watching him, impossible to read. His heart leapt for his throat. 

“I’m going away in two weeks.” Axel informed him, voice small, soft, and there was something in his eye, an emotion that weighed his shoulders down. 

Roxas’ heart raced for a different reason now, colder, more distressing. 

“To where?” 

“The warehouse. There’s a target I need to capture.” 

“Will you be back soon?” 

Axel shook his head, and he could feel the delicate weave of time and space start to undo at the edges. His only heaven, dissipating. 

“I don’t know how long I’ll be gone for, I just know it won’t be a fast deal.” 

“You don’t even have an estimate for that? Days, weeks?” 

“Weeks, definitely.” 

His throat closed, his eyes threatened to water. Fuck, not in front of Axel. Not now. He squeezed them shut to make it stop, bringing his knees up to his chest, arms wrapped around them to hold onto something. The knot behind his tongue hurt, and if he tried to speak a single word right now, it’d be all over, he knew; it was on how badly his vocal chords trembled in his throat. He tried his best to hold it all in, to keep from showing just how badly this new information affected him, but the hard scowl on his face made it very obvious. The look of absolute pity on Axel’s face confirmed that much. God, he wanted to kick himself. 

Axel leaned away from the couch and walked over, but he couldn’t watch that without shaking, without having his eyes betray himself and water anyway, so he dropped them at his lap, blurred by unshed tears. 

“Hey.” The softest voice in the world, closer now; he could see Axel’s feet approaching, the way Axel took a seat on the bed next to him, but making it so they could stare at each other. He kept his eyes down. 

“You’ll be okay.” Axel reassured him calmly, reaching over so a hand could touch his head, brush hair out of his face, run fingers through the locks, soothing, lovely. It made holding back tears unbearable, impossible; they broke through anyway, spilling out from the corner of his eyes, flowing down his cheeks. He brought both hands up to his face to hide behind them, to dry his cheeks, to stop watching Axel be so fucking sweet to him. He sobbed, and shook, and had Axel draw him closer with a hand on the nape of his neck, pulling him all the way across to rest his forehead on a friendly shoulder. 

Instinctively, he buried his nose on Axel’s neck, breathing in his scent, the soap that he used, the flowery fragrance of his clothes. One long breath in, and he could feel himself change, already calmer, his heart slowing, the sobs lessening. A hand held his head close, fingers brushing the hair at the base of his skull as the other enveloped his back under an arm, holding the embrace firmly. His heart beat differently from this, deeper, reached in further, resonated from his very core to the nerve receptors on his skin, an unusual kind of nice that had him breathing heavier, steadily, until his subconscious took over. 

Despite the bad news, he still didn’t dream that night. It was the unfaltering sense of safety that Axel’s presence brought him, which would be gone soon for whoever knew how long. He resented that immensely, sure of the dream’s return with Axel’s absence. It’d be a fucking shit-show. His only lifeline, gone too soon. 

The next few days granted him some heartache, moderate gloom, and a lot of reflection on the current situation while watching Axel go about his daily life. He started to notice Axel’s wardrobe more, something he had never really done before; the way that practically all of his shirts looked very tight on him, the perfect cut of his pants, the length of his jackets and how he very rarely wore any layers. On second thought, he barely ever saw Axel sleep under blankets at night, and had never seen him wear more than one jacket at a time, despite how cold it could get out there. Axel seemed to be one of those people who always had a fire burning inside of them, who complained about the heat in the winter and put ice in every glass. He didn’t mind that exactly, though; it made the short sleeves of Axel’s shirts be greatly appreciated, and the designs on his big arms get the attention that they deserved. Axel caught him staring practically every time, but not that he minded it; he hadn’t been trying to hide it, and had no excuse to make Axel believe otherwise. His friend made his chest burn, and the guy had the right to know it, especially due to his imminent demise. 

Ten days left now. Axel approached Saix one second before his friend left the sitting room and promptly roped him into conversation, just home from a mission, still in an overcoat and gloves. Roxas watched him report back in what seemed to be a concoction of business talk with friendly chatter, which Saix took in stride, even participated as if all of it were very mundane. It was curious, the way that they spoke to each other, serious, but, at the same time, lighthearted, somehow. He supposed only close friends could get to this type of comfort around one another, and wondered how Axel felt when interacting with him. 

As if conjuring up his best friend, Axel glanced over at him a second later, flashing him a smile before wrapping it up with their boss. Roxas simply watched his long strides as he came over and stood right next to where he sat, a hand soon finding his head, gloved fingers carding through blonde locks. He stiffened a little, eyes quickly flicking over at the other members in the room, who disinterestedly went about their own lives, because Axel never touched him in public, and vice-versa. They barely even interacted in the common rooms of the building, so this was a little unexpected, but if Axel didn’t care, then he probably shouldn’t, either. He glanced up to meet with the greens that watched him and found a sweet, soft smile on his friend’s face that almost reminded him of something. Almost, almost, but he couldn’t really assess it. 

“Wanna watch a movie tonight?” 

That was a new concept that they hadn’t explored before, but not one that he had ever been against. He knew how much Axel didn’t care about movies and TV shows, which was what threw him off here, and had him questioning the request. Axel had never accepted  _ his _ invitations to watch movies and shows together, meaning that this couldn’t have been about the movie, not really; it was about something else. The prospect of finding that out made him say yes more strongly than he would’ve on a regular day. Just to clarify, this last week with his best friend, in no circumstance, had had any regular days in it. They had all been spent in a sort of half-conscious nebula made of introspection and too much thought, too much attention to detail, too much preemptive longing. He couldn’t have anything be lost on him while the clock ticked down. 

They shared the couch in Axel’s room with the television on The Nightmare Before Christmas, one of his favorite movies, which his friend knew damn well, and had obviously picked out on purpose. He squinted, but only mentally, his brain scrambling to figure out Axel’s angle here, because something wasn’t right. 

“You hate this movie.” He tried to conceal the fact that he had been scheming for the last forty-five minutes, but didn’t believe his voice could hold that much illusion in it. 

Axel gave him a look. 

“No, I don’t. I never said that.” 

Maybe hate was too strong a word, but to state that Axel didn’t care about it was right. Was this his way of trying to make Roxas feel better, then, by putting on a movie that he enjoyed in the one room of the building that made him feel safe? If so, maybe it meant that Axel felt bad about leaving. Maybe he didn’t even  _ want _ to leave. Roxas turned to look at him, properly look at him, shifting around in his seat to face Axel’s profile, chiseled nose and strong jaw, a single teardrop tattoo visible. In retrospect, he should’ve noticed that these were dead giveaways to the fact that there were more of the type hidden just under a black shirt collar. 

It only took his friend about a second to notice the stare-down and turn to look right back at him, two greens fixed on his face. 

“Send someone else in your place next week.” 

His idea softened Axel’s eyes into something almost broken, that look of pity again, but worse now, seeming to be more hurt somehow. It made tar boil in his stomach and his hands clench into fists, very fucking insulting. 

“I can’t--”

“Just don’t go, what’s the big deal?” 

“Roxas.”

“Or take me with you. I can handle it.” 

“I know you can, but the warehouse is strictly off-limits. I can’t let you in there.” 

“Seeing people behind bars won’t fuck me up, Axel. I’ll be fine.” 

“Sure, but you’re still not allowed in there.” 

He scowled. If Axel didn’t want him jeopardizing his solo mission, then nothing he said would change the guy’s mind, so he simply took the loss, shut his mouth, and turned back around to stare at the television. Fine; he’d find a way to live through however many weeks he had to until Axel came back. Who knew, maybe he’d even find a way to live peacefully without constantly needing to be in Axel’s presence, though he didn’t find that to be very believable, or probable, but whatever; he’d try. At this point, he supposed, he didn’t have any other option. 

“You know it’s not my choice.” Axel persuaded, his voice silky smooth, the kind that he used when trying to win someone over. “If I could, I’d bring you with me. You know that.” 

A hand touched his temple, brushed his hair back, but he swatted it away. 

“No, you wouldn’t. You think I’d get in the way.” 

Next to him, Axel shifted to sit upright a little, as if properly interested in the topic now. 

“What gave you that impression?” 

The question made him turn to face the redhead fully, to see the crease in his brow, the projected intrigue in his eyes. Axel was a really good pretender. 

“Axel, you babysit me all the time. You make us go on missions together every other day just to check on me. I’m sleeping in your  _ fucking _ room every night, and you don’t even care; the only reason why you’d ever lose sight of me at this point is if it’s something very important. You don’t want to fuck it up, and I’d only make it harder if I went with you, so I get it. I do.” 

Axel ran a hand through his own hair, his bicep straining the shirt sleeve as he did, and he had a tattoo there that Roxas had never noticed before; some sort of plant, it seemed, though the arm went back down before he could get a good look at it. 

“I’m sorry; the subject involves a lot that we can’t afford to lose. You know I’d take you with me if I could, but I wouldn’t be able to pay attention to you. Not as much as you need.” 

“I promise to stay out of the way.” 

Axel shook his head. 

“I’m sorry, baby, I can’t.” 

The nickname threw him off big time, especially spoken in such a soft voice, the sentiment damn near genuine coming from the one who faked it the best, so close to making him believe it that his heart even skipped, and his mind quickly scrambled for a scenario, a feeling, a time when Axel would’ve said this and meant it. Would’ve called him that not in an attempt to placate him, but because it came from the heart, because they meant something to one another, because Axel had the ability for that. He felt himself frown at it, watching the compassion on the greens before him, so perfectly replicated that he might as well have fallen for the entire act, and fallen for him, too. 

The mere idea of reciprocity was too idyllic to even humor it. 

“You say that like I’m something to you.” His voice was quiet, shy, nearly caught in his throat, not wanting to come out. 

Axel gave him an interesting look, head tilted the smallest bit aside, a textbook display of curiosity. 

“Why wouldn’t you be?” 

He didn’t answer that. He didn’t know how to answer that. 

“Have we…” No. He cut himself short, because of course they hadn’t met before, Axel had confirmed that much last time he had asked. They had been nowhere near one another in their human lives, making it impossible for them to have ever been romantically involved in any way, even if his mind tried to trick him about it, or maybe tell him something else that he couldn’t understand yet, because maybe it hadn’t been Axel, and maybe it hadn’t been him, either. 

“Have we what?” 

“Did you have someone you cared about when you were a human?” 

“Yeah, I cared for a lot of people.” 

“No, I mean someone special, like someone who made you feel good inside.” The one he had called baby and meant it. 

Axel hummed, staring off to the side a bit, in thought. 

“I can’t remember much, but I know I loved someone. If that ended well or not, I can’t tell you.” 

Love. Axel got to feel love when he had a heart. 

Roxas was really fucking jealous. 

“Do you remember how it felt like? Love?” 

Axel took a deep breath in, his mind far off in recollection for a second, the room in relative silence as he thought, flooded only by the movie’s soundtrack that played in the background of their conversation. He squinted, then raised a brow, his eyes moving to fix themselves on Roxas’ next, a wide smirk slowly cutting across his face. Of course. 

“Yeah, I remember love. It’s nothing we can’t replicate here.” 

“No, you’re thinking of something else.” He spoke quickly, almost cutting the redhead off to keep his mind from derailing into a topic that he wouldn’t have been able to recover from for a good, long time. “I’m talking about when you look at that person, that one person who makes you feel like there’s a supernova inside of you, like your chest could break open at any time, like you could scream with how much you love them, you know? Love. Not sex, Axel, love, that gets caught in your throat and makes your heart pound. Love.” 

Axel gave him a look. 

“Sounds like you’re the one who remembers love better.” 

“No--” He didn’t. He didn’t remember anything from his past life, but that wasn’t it; his recollection came from someone else’s doings, someone else’s feelings. He didn’t feel love. He had never felt love. 

“No, I don’t. Not really.” But when he took Axel’s hand, when he was under Axel’s wing, when he saw Axel’s body, he felt it. Maybe not it exactly, but something, a rush, an impulse. Memories that he somehow got to relive. 

“We can feel it again, though, can’t we? If we try.” 

“What we feel is only what our hearts left behind, Roxas. The ghost of what we used to feel; only what we can remember of it.” 

“But if we relive it through our actions, if I kiss you right now, won’t I feel it again? Won’t you make my heart beat?” 

The condescending pity on Axel’s face made him want to punch him, made his cheeks burn with the idiocy that his question must’ve sounded like, even if it made sense, even if he was right to ask it, because he  _ felt _ it, he knew the answer, he just needed Axel to confirm that it was real. That he wasn’t imagining it all, even if the redhead thought him a fool for it. 

“Kissing me will only trigger what you used to feel when doing it with a heart.” 

Kissing you with a heart?, he almost asked, but swallowed that down instead, not up for another session of open ridicule. They had never met before this, and he had to get that through his thick head somehow, no matter how much his mind tried to tell him otherwise, searching for reason, for a link, for an explanation. None of them involved Axel, but, the more they discussed this, the more it felt to him that it did. In the end, it all went back to Axel, somehow. 

“So you feel it beat? You feel it in your chest?” 

“No, Roxas. Angel. We don’t have hearts.” 

Impossible, because he felt it. He felt it. Ever since the lake, his heart could not stop beating, and if Axel wasn’t going to believe in his words, then he’d show him concrete evidence of it. He reached for Axel’s hand and placed the palm flat on his chest, where it resonated when they touched, where the warmth bubbled in Axel’s presence. He held Axel’s hand there, staring intently into his friend’s face, into the bewildered look that he got in reply to it. Axel didn’t feel it. It wasn’t being obvious enough. 

He leaned forward. It was a whim, a compulsive need to prove himself that pushed him to it, that gave him the emotional shield necessary to lean on a hand, shut his eyes, and land squarely on Axel’s mouth, lips pressed hard together in a kiss that made him breathe in deep, that made his face burn and his heart pound right under the palm of Axel’s hand, singeing his skin through his shirt. Axel must’ve felt it now; the hammering of his heart, the shaking of his ribs, he must’ve felt it, the certainty that they had done this a million times, a million times! He must’ve felt it now, holding Roxas’ face with his free hand, parting lips and slipping tongue. 

Roxas let him, instinctively; he knew what to do, knew what Axel was about to do next, knew exactly how to proceed, how to push back, how to suck his lip and bite his tongue. He knew, and had Axel pulling him closer by the nape of the neck, the hand on his chest gone and replaced on the low of his back, warm, riding up his shirt at the bottom. He moved, shifted his weight to both knees, straddling the couch now, a hand free to grab the side of Axel’s face in something of an experimental touch, because that wasn’t what the memories told him to do. He free-styled it a bit, eating at Axel’s lips, enjoying the hand on his jaw and the warm, strong weight on his back, mostly over his shirt, fingertips brushing his skin, and it was so nice, so nice; he didn’t think Axel had it in himself to kiss right back, to be this interested, to nose-dive right in. He kind of liked it. 

One knee slung over Axel’s thigh and he sat on it, closer now, Axel’s tongue deep in his throat and his heart coming up to meet it. He had never been so breathless before, so warm, so hot all over, from his chest to his hands to everywhere else, pooling at the pit of him, on tenterhooks. He squeezed the side of Axel’s neck a bit, lost in blinding infatuation, being manhandled onto the width of Axel’s lap, sitting properly on him now, his knees digging into the couch and his ass pressing down on him. The visions urged him to grind against the redhead, that being the next logical step of what was entirely mapped out behind his eyelids, flashing before him like a disorganized reel movie, telling him the ending before they had even begun, but he refused; this wasn’t the point that he was trying to make. He only wanted to show Axel the beating of his heart, but since that came with its own perks, well, he wasn’t one to disregard them. Still, though, before he pushed too far, he broke away from Axel’s face and fetched his hand again, placed the palm over his chest. 

“Do you feel it?” He asked, breathless, staring deep into Axel’s greens, pupils blown so big that the greens had almost vanished from them. 

Axel watched him quietly, his brows slowly pinching together. He tried to pull his hand back, but Roxas didn’t let him, a firm hold to keep the palm against his pulsing skin. 

“Do you?” He pressed. 

“Yeah.” 

He breathed out, shoulders sagging with relief. He knew it; he wasn’t going completely insane. 

The greens that watched him moved back and forth, bouncing between his eyes, apparently trying to read him and having a hard time doing it, which was curious, because he had always thought himself an open book, especially to the only one who could read it. Still, Axel squinted, dropped his gaze down and pulled his hand away from Roxas’ chest to no resistance this time around; he had already proved what he needed to. Scowling hard and clouded over by something serious, Axel leaned away from him, jaw set and shoulders squared. This type of reaction made Roxas mirror him and lean back as well, heart pounding at the back of his throat, blood running cold. Something felt off. 

“What?” He asked, terribly self-conscious all of a sudden. 

Axel shook his head. 

“Nothing, you…” A pause. Axel glanced him down, briefer this time, and moved to leave from underneath him. “It’s fine.” 

“Is it?” 

Axel didn’t say it was  _ normal, _ he said it was fine, but it wasn’t normal, and it didn’t feel fine. In fact, he only felt worse now, taking Axel’s empty side of the couch as his friend got up and stepped away from him, further into the living room, closer to the television. The digital snow on the screen colored him blue as he tugged on the collar of his shirt, seeming smothered by it, his face turned to the side, eyes cast off into the infinity of his own mind, gears always turning. Roxas got up to approach him, heart punching up his throat, choking him with his own tongue. Axel’s distress made him want to scream; it worried him so much that it was actually debilitating. Axel was always sure and confident about virtually everything, so this must’ve been absolutely catastrophic, and he had caused it somehow. He wasn’t even sure which part of tonight had been the worst of it. 

“Axel--”

“Are you sure you’re not human?” Axel spoke over him suddenly, eyes locked onto his own now, round, wide, almost insane. It paralyzed him in place. 

He had never considered that before. 

“No.” Voice small, barely present, reeling from the thought, from the mere possibility that he might’ve been human, that he had felt like one for even a single second before, but that wasn’t right. It was impossible. He couldn’t have been something that had already died. 

“You met me after retcon.” He continued, surer now, sounding more alike himself. “You pulled me from the emptiness, Axel. You were  _ there, _ in the room. You got me out of the pod; how am I… I can’t be. I’m not human. You know this. You saw it.” 

Axel shook his head again, one hand in his mess of red hair, fingers running through, nearly tugging on the scalp. The glow behind him sharpened the edges of his unease, framing it a dark silhouette in the light. 

“You remember the retcon room.” Axel spoke quietly, almost muttering to himself. “You remember that.” 

“No, you told me about it. You said you pulled me out.” 

“I did, yeah.” A pause. Their eyes met, and Axel dropped the hand from his head. Breathing in, he almost looked normal again. Not as crazy. “Saix assigned you to me from the beginning, did you know that? We brought you back because you shone brighter than the rest.”

“The rest? What do you mean?”

“The other souls.” 

“You can see them?” 

“No, babe.” 

“Saix.” He blurted out immediately, speaking over the redhead. Right, of course, Saix was a reaper. It was so easy to forget. 

Axel nodded his confirmation to that. 

“You know I’m not human, Axel. Maybe Saix just brought me back better than some of the others.” 

While that might’ve been true, he knew it had really been the lake. None of his overwhelming emotions, perfect imitations of the real thing, he supposed, had been there before the lake, especially not with visions and memories attached to them. He used to live like a Nobody should, barely feeling anything at all, only being reminded of a dull ache in the center of his chest every now and again, but not the way it was now. Never as strong as this, enough to reverberate across his entire chest and shake his ribs with it. It wasn’t right. 

The lake had clung to his skin and seeped through to his bones. 

Axel shrugged out a resigned response to that and discontinued the topic, cutting the night short with a push on the remote to turn the television off. Shrouded in darkness and silence, he wished Roxas a good night that made him feel like he had said something wrong, done something wrong, which was very much true, and spread a chill all across his body, down to his fingertips. Quietly, he walked over to the bed and took his place amid Axel’s belongings. 


	2. Axel

They didn’t talk about last night. He didn’t expect to, and it came as no surprise when Axel greeted him in the morning with a smile on his face and an offer to go get breakfast together, no comment on what had happened, barely any acknowledgement that it had been real, even. He didn’t mind it, not really, not while accompanying Axel for the day, laughing and making light conversation to laboriously ignore the fact that he was a complete anomaly within his own kind. He didn’t know what had happened inside of him at that lake, but it had fucked him up, and, for the second time, made him not want the feelings that flourished in his chest. They weren’t even supposed to be there in the first place, and the memory flashes were nothing but a voyeuristic indulgence that he couldn’t really control. He only hadn’t told Axel about them yet because it’d have made everything worse, and, right now, he just wanted his friend back. He just wanted Axel here with him, driving him around and laughing about nothing while he could still have him.

The only nod to last night happening was how Axel started to watch him again, this time with a sort of somber look on his face that darkened his eyes and set his brows while Roxas went about the most mundane things just a few feet away from him, the dishes, the laundry. He caught Axel all the time, too, but never said anything about it, too afraid to poke at something that he’d rather not know, that would make his friend mad, that would draw them apart somehow. That was his biggest fear, and he’d avoid it as much as he could, even if it was inevitable, even if he only had nine days to do it. Still, he’d give it his best.

Axel sat leaned back on the chair, his legs set apart and his arms crossed over his chest as the timer counted down, a blue glow cutting through the dim overhead lights, the laundromat in relative silence with the shaking of the one washing machine and the muffled noises of the outside traffic that tried to get in through the glass doors. Roxas sat next to him, their thighs touching, Axel’s body strongly radiating tobacco and vanilla all around him, too rich a scent to be wasted in here, he thought, but not that he could do much about it other than breathe in as deeply as he could, as often as he could. He didn’t think that his ribs had ever fully recovered from the fall, but it didn’t stop him from behaving as if they had.

One glance up confirmed to him that Axel was watching him right now, those two greens glancing him down deliberately, from head to toe and back, but impassive, in a way that he couldn’t read. Unfortunately, the rest of Axel’s body gave him nothing to help demystify that; his face was perfectly still, the cut of his jaw set, the crossing of his arms making them look even bigger than usual, pushing his pectorals together, his knees far apart. Axel was so much bigger than him, he noticed here, all of a sudden, sitting side-by-side like this; arms and thighs three times his own. His heart skipped at that, had him breathing the cologne a little deeper, drunk on it as his eyes traced where the sleeve of Axel’s shirt ended and his arm began, just about concealing the tattoo there, a shadow of it poking from under the hem. He watched the slight curve of his back, how he leaned on the chair just far enough for comfort, setting his feet hard on the ground to keep from slipping off the seat, knees bent, his big thighs pushed apart, one resting against Roxas’ own, warm where they met. Tight, black jeans that sculpted his legs and hugged his thighs and Roxas turned around to glance out the window instead, look at the traffic a little, think about the cold, the wind, the snow. He breathed in the overpowering scent of tobacco and vanilla and closed his eyes.

A touch on his head, warm, Axel’s hand carding through his hair, brushing it aside, following the wave that curved up on the right, spiked at the top. He let him, as he always did, concentrating on the softness of Axel’s attention, the careful running of fingers through blonde locks that warmed up his chest, soothed the beating of his heart. He remembered Axel calling him baby last night and wondered what it would take to hear that without the patronage, how it would feel like to have Axel say it and mean it. He opened his eyes again, turning to glance up at the redhead, to scrutinize the greens that watched him and come out with something very close to what he had been looking for, a softness there, the ghost of a sentiment. A clear indication that Axel cared, but that wasn’t new, and he wanted something else this time, more powerful, that came from deeper within. He wanted to find how he felt when staring down Axel’s body, but he didn’t think that Axel had the same thoughts about him, not from how sweet he was all the time, loosely remaining within the confines of their friendship.

For a moment, he thought that he was the only one who disregarded the platonic boundaries of an ordinary friendship, but then he remembered the kiss from last night, and how much Axel had been into it, so he most likely wasn’t alone. Given the fact that Axel had never pushed him away or really admonished him for anything that he ever did, that kiss included, he could probably just do it again, right here, and suffer no consequences from it. The revelation reached him one second before he shut his eyes and leaned up to test it, meeting with Axel’s mouth halfway there. He had made himself very obvious, and his friend had leaned down for it, how cute. How cute. He couldn’t help the skip of his heart, or the smile that tugged at his lips, soft against Axel’s own. His chest filled with sentiment, the flashes behind his eyes very faint this time, bringing him something else, urging him away from these chairs, but he ignored them. For once, he just wanted to be here, kissing Axel’s face under the weight of his wing, and that was enough. That was more than enough, no visions needed, no memory of a different lifetime. He grabbed the side of Axel’s neck and pulled him closer.

So maybe Axel had been thinking about it, too, with a hand in his hair and a tongue in his mouth. Maybe they were on the very same page here, yet danced around it for some reason, ignoring the obvious, afraid to take the plunge and hit rock bottom. He was well over that by now, encouraged by Axel’s inability to push him off or ever tell him no, and to make his intentions very clear, to let Axel know that this was how things worked now between the two of them, he expressed his point by leaving the laundromat hand-in-hand and inviting Axel to share the bed with him tonight, except... Except that he didn’t, really. Outside, with Axel’s hand in his own, he went over every possible way to ask him. Every question, every subtlety, every vague motioning to it, but he couldn’t do it. Hopping into bed with the question stuck halfway up his throat, a knot right behind his Adam’s apple, caught in between spitting it out or swallowing it down, he choked on it. He tried, he really did, but the words just wouldn’t come out, and by the time he’d ever have been able to untangle them, he knew that Axel would already have been fast asleep. With an ugly scowl on his face, he covered himself in the sheets that didn’t smell of Axel anymore and did his best not to scream into the pillows.

The fact that Axel was never the one to initiate anything was starting to get to him. He followed the guy around all day, doing chores with him, driving around with him, shopping with him, lounging with him, rewatching The Nightmare Before Christmas for the third time  with him, and nothing ever happened, he thought. If it hadn’t been for him, nothing would’ve ever happened, he thought. This last one might’ve been correct, though it was impossible to know for sure, but the first one, he soon realized, was wrong. He noticed that on the way back from the grocery store, when Axel draped an arm across his shoulders and pulled him closer. He noticed it in the car, when Axel reached across the console to ruffle his hair, laughing at something stupid that he had said. Downtown, when a bright smile cut through Axel’s face and flattery left his lips as he hopped out of the changing booth to show off a dark coat that he thought would look nice. Axel had ended up buying it for him, but that wasn’t the point. At the building, Axel touched his hair, asking for some help with the report, which he most likely didn’t need, and had only used as an excuse to bring up conversation. In the room, Axel put on a movie for him, sat next to him, pulled him closer, never left him alone. All night, and all day, to the possible extent, separate missions excluded, Axel never left him alone anymore, ever since he had started coming to his room, ever since he had expressed extreme distress at being by himself.

Axel had come through time and time again, and when Roxas kissed him full on the mouth the next morning, unashamed and unafraid, that seemed to have been the final push to finally make it a thing. _Finally,_ after what had felt like a thousand hints tossed right over his friend’s head, Axel started to kiss him unprompted; quick ones for good morning, a sentimental one on the back of his hand before a mission, a meaningful one to break the silence. Always when they were by themselves, away from the others, either hidden within the shadows of the town or locked behind Axel’s bedroom door. Roxas grabbed his neck, met with his face, and completely ignored everything that the memories told him to do. They hadn’t been working in his favor these days, always trying to push him to make it weird, urging him to escalate the moment when he really just wanted to live it for a while, alone now, with his own set of memories, the ones that they had been making together. Really making, in this lifetime, together.

It didn’t have a name, but he was fairly certain that it meant something, this whole thing.

He only changed his mind about the déjà vecus five days before Axel’s departure, on a recon mission with the redhead, at a bar that he had definitely been to before. A bar that wasn’t really a bar, a night club that wasn’t entirely dancefloors, a place that people either came to sit and drink, or drink and dance. Lined up bottles on a wall-sized shelf glistened under the colorful, strobe-like lights, on display behind the bar where some people sat to drink, and some people quickly grabbed refills to take back to the dancefloor ten feet away from it. Chairs and tables on one side, a wide dancefloor on the other, and a VIP lounge on the inside balcony upstairs that overlooked the entire business. No food, no waiters, nobody underage; this place only opened after ten and they had been here before, gone through this door, bee-lined for the bar. He followed Axel in, shouldering through the crowd, forging a path for him, going in the right direction only for the first few steps, until Axel took a left, clearly headed for the tables nearby, but a firm fist around his wrist kept him from pushing on, because this wasn’t way. This wasn’t what they had really done here.

“No.” The word slipped out of his mouth straight from his mind, inaudible amid the loudness of the music that boomed overhead, but real enough to make him catch himself, pull himself back into the present. At his left, Axel gave him a questioning look, so he tugged the redhead toward the bar, shouting his intention over the crowd. His voice blended with the music and ultimately didn’t reach his friend, but that didn’t matter; he marched on.

At the bar, he ordered two mojitos, reliving the moment for the thousandth time, leaning over the counter the tiniest bit for the barista’s attention. Axel settled next to him, very close, the front of his body pressed to Roxas’s side and an arm across his back. The place was crowded, it was so full, so warm with the people dancing that Roxas understood the closeness and the sharp protection, but something told him that Axel’s behavior wouldn’t have changed even if the building had been absolutely desolate. Some sort of ancient knowledge in his brain revealed the true nature of every man in this club, Axel’s possessive character included, but, right now, he didn’t mind it. It didn’t change anything. With drinks in hand, he clinked their glasses together.

“Happy birthday.” He shouted, then sipped on his drink.

Axel watched him curiously, his glass halfway up to his face, as if in a brief pause of drinking it. His piercing greens squinted.

“It’s not my birthday.” Axel clarified, and downed his own glass.

No, it wasn’t, but they were here to celebrate it, because, because yeah, yeah, actually, it was. It was his birthday, or not his, but someone else’s. Or when they came here, it had been his birthday. They had celebrated it, and Britney Spears had played, and they had danced to it. He had turned twenty-one. Twenty-one? No, Axel was, he was, no, but he had been twenty-one, and here, and partying, and, and, Roxas took a very long gulp of the sweet, minty drink in his hand. They had been here a million times, on his birthday, not on his birthday, on special occasions and on regular days, too. On bad days, good days, every other day. They came here a lot. God, they came here too much. Too much. Someone always let them in, a friend, someone they knew, someone who worked here and they came here for them, for that one person, but who? Roxas glanced around, the world softening at the edges, his head feather light above his neck. Someone, someone, a friend. A good friend. A lover? No. Almost.

Across the dancefloor was a set of stairs that they had gone up multiple times before, and under it the bathroom doors, but not the important ones. He drank, because it was Axel’s birthday, but it wasn’t, because he had turned twenty-one a long time ago, probably when he had been alive still, surely when he had been alive still, but it was a celebration, and it was Axel’s birthday. Someone’s birthday. Not anyone’s birthday. The alcohol burned down his throat and boiled in his stomach, made his body warm, his skin tingle. The dancefloor was crowded.

“Two more!” He shouted to the bartender, even though his glass was still half full, and his blood ran very hot in his veins. He was sweating. In only a shirt and jeans, he was sweating. Must’ve been the multiple bodies surrounding him.

Axel pulled him closer, a firm hand on his waist, almost staggered him a step over. He turned to glance up at his friend, but Axel leaned down to speak in his ear instead.

“Chill.” Voice firm, stern even, with an edge of annoyance to it that affected him deeply. In his current state, everything affected him deeply, but Axel’s opinion made a bigger impact than most. Than mostly any. Than literally anyone’s that he had ever known.

His face was very, very warm, but, at the same time, he couldn’t feel it. Axel made his heart race with embarrassment, so he drank some more, numbed it all, and loosely promised to himself that he’d keep quiet from now on. This was a recon mission, after all, and they weren’t here for Axel’s birthday. Or his own. Or it _was_ his birthday, and he should’ve been dressed in pink. They hadn’t had mojitos, though, but margaritas, and they should’ve been dancing. They had danced a lot, they had danced so much! They should’ve been dancing with drinks in one hand and each other in the other. The second mojito arrived, and he exchanged it for a margarita, very avidly avoiding Axel’s gaze, which he was dead sure burned him alive right now, set him on fire with a single glance, but he wasn’t in full control of himself and ended up looking anyway, turning to face the redhead who stood well over a foot above him.

To his haze of a surprise, Axel wasn’t watching him; his eyes scanned the dancefloor as if searching for someone, or something, and his face was serious, eyebrows drawn to a hard line as he lifted his glass trying to look casual. It would’ve worked better if Roxas hadn’t been here, he knew that, but quickly lost his train of thought when Axel’s glass found his lips and his head tilted back, neck exposed, Adam’s apple bobbing. He watched that only half conscious with an incredible need to lean over and press his open mouth to Axel’s neck, to feel his skin under his lips, his pulse under a tongue. But he didn’t do it. In his mind, he did, but, in truth, he turned to finish the rest of his first glass.

“Let’s go dancing.” He stated loudly, slamming his empty cup on the counter.

Everything that spilled out of his mouth was on an absolute whim, double lives crossed over into one reality. He wasn’t himself, but he was, but someone else had been here, had danced here, had celebrated here, and it had been him and Axel, but it hadn’t. He grabbed Axel’s wrist and tried to hoist a hundred and sixty pounds to the dancefloor, but only got the beginnings of a step in the works before a fast hand found his upper arm, pulled him back. It held him hard, squeezing him, digging into the meat as if to reach bone, and yanked him backwards, making him stumble on his own two feet against the broadness of Axel’s body.

“Behave.” Axel hissed in the small space between them, voice low, low in a sort of growl that immediately put color to his face and made his eyes glass over. Or maybe that had been the scare more than the shame, which the sixteen ounces of cocktail in his bloodstream should’ve shielded him from, theoretically, but didn’t. The lights blurred together and the crowd swayed. He blinked, wouldn’t let it happen right now, and made a weak attempt to pull away, arm pulsing in the grasp. Axel graciously let go of him.

The margarita had salt on the rim of the glass and tasted worse than the mojito, so he didn’t instantly down it, only sipped here and there trying to keep his lips on the one saltless spot that he had made. It was bad, but it was something to keep his eyes on, watching the green bit at the bottom swirl and mix with the clear rest of the drink instead of looking at Axel’s face, the annoyance there, the disappointment in him. He didn’t even know how he had gotten so out of control, so out of himself, but this bar had had a major play on that, twisting his memories, pushing him to believe in what wasn’t real, in what had never happened. Or maybe it had, just not to him. He sipped, face up, eyes on the crowd and not on his friend. His chest hurt, his stomach churned, his vision blurred, but the tears didn’t fall. He’d find a way to kill himself before that happened.

Next to him, Axel moved, a hand found his own, softly, a lot more gentle this time around, and he was pulled away from the bar.

The tables that made up a portion of the club were small, for two people at most, and had only a couple of armchairs tucked under each. They took neighboring seats, margaritas set on the table, his glass significantly more drained than Axel’s. He still couldn’t look at him.

They had never really sat here before, only crossed this area on the way to the bathroom, the other one, the good one with the dim lights, no gender on the door, and three big stalls. They had gone there on his birthday. Axel’s birthday? A birthday, and it had been so good, so good, his face flushed with the memories of it. In the second stall, pushed up against the wall, a mouth on his neck, his jacket halfway down his back and a hip hard on his own. He blinked, turned away from the bathroom door, instinctively reached for Axel’s hand resting on the armchair next to his. He grabbed it, breathing quickly, the skin over his face on fire. Wide blue eyes stared into the side of Axel’s face as the redhead leisurely sipped on his drink, eyes trained on the crowd, attentive and sharp, his hand naturally holding Roxas’ back.

Breathless, he took the margarita from the table and swallowed the rest of it, if only to make the memories stop pouring in, flooding his mind, printing the back of his retinas with embarrassing imagery of something that had never happened, that had only happened once, that had happened a million times, but not to him. Not with him. He shut his eyes, squeezed them, opened them again and the music kept on blasting, the people danced, the crowd swayed, the world spun and he couldn’t feel his own fingers.

At some point, Axel had had enough and brought him stumbling outside, holding firmly onto his hand, in the middle of saying something that he didn’t remember the beginning of. Didn’t have a single recollection of even having been addressed, or what they had done in the timeframe between leaving the counter and going outside. He followed Axel across the street, as they usually did after the club, on the way to the community pool, which was closed at this hour, but not impossible to break into. They knew this well. Axel, however, stopped right across from the club and lit up a cigarette instead, again breaking the ritual. He grabbed onto the cuffs of Axel’s leather jacket for attention.

“C’mon, let’s keep going. The pool is just down there.”

“What pool?” Axel asked around the cigarette, voice muffled slightly by the filter.

“The pool, you know. Come on.” He tugged, surer now, his hand closed tight around Axel’s wrist, but still only able to get a stumble and a step out of the redhead.

“Roxas--”

“Just, come on! Please! Stop shutting me down all night and just fuck me in the pool, alright? God!” He shouted, his voice raw from it. “God, is that too much to ask? Jesus!”

He felt sick. The world spun, the buildings across the street multiplied, vomit came up his throat from all of the screaming and he doubled over, hands clasped on knees, but nothing came up. He didn’t let it. He retched, groaned, swallowed it all down and moved to stand upright again before Axel got too close, before Axel could touch him. He turned and stumbled down the street by himself, around the corner, toward his destination, whether or not Axel followed, though he knew Axel would follow. He always did.

“Roxas, hey, you good?” From behind him, not too far, but not close enough to be at his side yet. Definitely following, though. “Hey, hey.” Closer now, footfalls right behind him, then a hand on his shoulder, heavy enough to alter his balance. He brushed it off first thing, but Axel was already in step with him. “Recon’s not over.”

“Yes, it is.” His voice was a degree too loud, a degree too shrill, and it made Axel wince. “We’re celebrating tonight, and it ends at the pool. It always ends at the pool.”

“What are you talking about? What _have_ you been talking about?”

“Your birthday!” He shouted again, the stars above spinning in wide circles, making his head swim. Axel wouldn’t stand still. “Jesus Christ, my birthday!”

“Whose birthday? Roxas, I’m a Scorpio and you’re an Aries; it won’t be anyone’s birthday for a while.”

“You’re a Virgo.” He blurted out thoughtlessly, but he was wrong. He knew that he was wrong, he just, for a second there, really felt like that was right. Axel wasn’t a Virgo, his heart had been captured in early November, but it was his birthday, and they had celebrated it, except they never did. They never celebrated anything, not birthdays, not holidays, not any sort of event because nothing was meaningful and Nobodies had no reason to pretend to enjoy any of it. Why had they celebrated Axel’s birthday that year? They hadn’t. He shook his head, the sidewalk melting under his feet. He must’ve been thinking of somebody else, even though he didn’t know anyone.

“No, you’re not.” He corrected himself.

“No, I’m not.” Axel spoke over him.

“Are you okay?” The sudden softness of Axel’s voice was a contrast that he didn’t expect, and which he fully ignored right now, in favor of obeying the visions in his head and the false memories that kept him walking through town, toward the community pool. If he stopped to consider Axel’s thoughts and feelings even for a moment, he knew he’d never make it to the pool, and that seemed to be the most important thing right now, the one thing that he just had to get to. He kept on walking.

“I’m fine, you’re just a dick. You’re a dick.”

“Yeah.”

The pool took up most of the block, dark and closed off this late, but they always jumped over the rear gate anyway, one of the horizontal bars a perfect foothold aimed for the top, the rest of the walls that fenced the place smooth and tall, impossible to climb from this side. It helped that the lampposts that lined the street were all yellow and dim, making it harder to be spotted at night. Naturally, he went straight for the gate, but voices from the other side of it made him reconsider the approach, and pushed Axel to grab him by the arm, pull him into the nearest alleyway, hidden from view. In the dark, the street outside bent in awkward and impossible angles as Axel peered from around the corner. He only didn’t mirror his friend because a sudden wave of nausea hit him very strongly, very hard, bending him in half with another retch. His eyes watered, but still nothing came up. The cement below his feet danced, and his shoelaces tangled up in knots. He wheezed, dry, nothing, breathed in and stood upright again, the world laying flat at his back now.

Axel didn’t see any of this, fully submerged in his espionage, cigarette discarded under a boot for stealth. Roxas decided to join him then, stepping up behind him, a hand on the waistband of Axel’s pants as he shuffled closer. One eye peeking from behind Axel’s head saw two short shadows walking down the sidewalk, consistently growing further away from them, chatting between themselves. The voices were too low to understand a word, and the street was too dark to make out any outstanding details about either of them, but he still watched, silent, the lights above them in a twist, nauseatingly bright.

The shadows sat down at a bus stop and waited. Roxas was fairly sure that all of the lines were long inactive at this hour, but given that he had never really taken the bus before, and, in fact, had only used public transportation once, that being the subway, he supposed that he wasn’t the most knowledgeable person on the subject. Axel’s car and willfulness to drive him around had damaged his common sense beyond repair.

Soon, a car showed up, pulled up to the curb and had both shadows get in. They drove off up the street, back towards the bar, and Axel immediately bolted after them. Roxas spluttered.

“You’ll never catch them!” He shouted through the laughter, watching the redhead absolutely book it up the street as the car drove away.

Axel ran to his own car and got in. Ah, right, this made more sense. The laughter subsided and quickly disappeared from his chest, leaving a hiccup behind. He ran up the street, too.

Axel wouldn’t leave him behind, would he? No, of course not. Would he? No, he had never done that, never left Roxas by himself before, not out in the world like this, tonight being the only exception, and, well. Well. The rear lights on Axel’s car turned on, and he ran faster.

Axel maneuvered out of a parallel parking spot with the practiced ease of an inhuman being, and would’ve completely knocked the breath out of him had he known how to drive, had he known what that kind of parking took from a person, emotionally, spiritually. He ran up to the passenger side, got in, and had the car speeding off before he had even pulled the door fully closed.

“What’s going on?” He asked, scrambling to get the seat belt buckled so the ringing in his ear would stop. It didn’t.

“How did you know he’d be there?” Axel spoke quickly, his eyes darting across the windshield in search of the car from before. “How do you know who he is?”

“Huh? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The market that flashed behind Axel’s head as they sped off looked familiar, but he had never come to this neighborhood before. It was too out of the way from their building, except they had been here a lot. They lived closeby, but they didn’t, but they did. His shoulder slammed the passenger door from a sharp turn that Axel took and his stomach twisted in knots, made him groan. The flashing street lights had his head pounding.

“Go slow.” He mumbled, but Axel wasn’t listening.

Out the window, his favorite video game store passed by, followed by a few other businesses, an exit, and then the hospital that he had stayed at for a long time. No, not him, but, but him. He had stayed there; the rooms were white, quiet but loud, sharp but soft, in and out of focus, like a dream. A good dream, a horrible nightmare, a soft pillow and a piercing needle. His best friend had brought him flowers. He had punched him, and his heart beat faster, his chest hurt, his eyes watered. He wanted to vomit. He didn’t want to remember any of that.

“Fuck!” Axel shouted, hitting the wheel once.

Roxas was very glad to be brought back to the present.

“Are you lost?” He asked, voice quiet, even if Axel still wasn’t listening, angry green eyes fixed onto the empty road ahead. He turned to look out his own window. “It’s to the right.”

Axel didn’t question him, and simply took the turn as suggested, headlights turned off, wheels quiet on asphalt. They were on a chase, but also on the way home, very close now.

“The next left.”

Silence. Out the window, the hardware store, the bakery, some houses. They had been to almost all of these, living nearby.

“Right at the end of the street and we’re home.”

Axel had to brake right before the last turn because the car from earlier was right there, having just rounded the corner, parking where they lived, pulling up to their curb so the shadows could get out, but he had never been here before, had never seen these series of short apartment buildings, had never been to a college dorm. Had never been to college. Axel leaned back onto his seat, green eyes glued to the shadows that crossed the sidewalk toward the entrance gate, a mindless smile on his face born out of complete disbelief. He sighed.

“Roxas, I could fucking kiss you right now.”

“Do it.”

“I don’t know how you knew any of this, or what you’re talking about half the time, but, God, I could fucking kiss you right now.”

“Axel.”

Their eyes met, Axel’s face finally turned away from the windshield and toward his own instead. He blinked, eyelids heavy, body lethargic and slumped against the backrest.

“Do it, then.”

Axel did, seatbelt unbuckled, his upper half crossing over the console to land a kiss square on Roxas’ mouth, hard enough to push him into the padding of his seat, teeth nearly clinking. His eyes closed immediately, a hand up to find the side of Axel’s face and the other resting flat on his chest, feeling it over a shirt.

No tongue, but Axel could’ve gotten it.

Driving home, actually home this time, all across town to the building, Axel’s smile grew wider, angling up his features, making his eyes shine, his attractiveness pushed to an eleven like this, twelve even. Like everything else, victory looked good on him.

“You’re welcome.” He spoke softly, trying to keep the pride in his lungs out of his voice, but most likely failing to do so; he wasn’t sure, the world spun too fast and his head was stuffed with too much foam to pay attention to himself, utterly unable to function well when Axel’s grin shone so brightly, shaped his face so nicely, the rest of him just as fine, all that Roxas could really see. “You owe me.”

“Yeah, name your price.”

“You.”

It slipped out in complete sincerity and he didn’t even catch it. Axel gave him a sidelong glance that spoiled his grin with the wicked sort of interest that Roxas had been trying to provoke out of him for a very long time now, that made his face burn and his leg bounce, heart racing, veins boiling. He guessed that alcohol and an inebriating atmosphere, a bar flooding with memories, were all it took.

“Yeah?” Smirk wide, green eyes glancing over for just one second, burning.

“Yeah.” Breathless and the most confident that he had ever been, would ever be.

It didn’t take much more for Axel to lock the bedroom door and meet his face with a kiss, both hands on his jaw, tongue deep down his throat. His eyes fluttered shut, eyelids promptly flush with colors, images, memories that he couldn’t brush off and make go away, their entire night laid out right in front of him, the end before the beginning in his brain again and he just wanted to live it, to do it for himself, to quit the voyeurism for once. He fisted Axel’s shirtfront and pulled him closer, desperate to break the cycle, to do the opposite of what was in his head. Axel’s body pressed up to his own, much bigger than in his visions, taller and broader than someone else and it worked, the memories started to falter, couldn’t overlap this with that so well anymore. The height difference helped a lot, standing on tiptoes never being part of the memories, the man in question just a couple of inches taller than him, two years older. Axel was much older than that.

The back of his knees found the edge of the bed and he took a seat, willingly, out of complete instinct, the room very shaky, the memories dimming. Being practically at eye-level with Axel’s crotch brought him back to a time, and a place, and then multiple times, and vastly different places, but before his brain could jump on that joyride, he turned his face aside and moved to sit further onto the mattress, not so close to the edge anymore. That gave him a privileged view of Axel pulling his shirt off overhead, olive skin stretching right before his eyes, muscles taut across Axel’s stomach, hips adorned in black paint, the pectorals moving together, then apart, as Axel removed the shirt, the plant under his bicep visible for one quick second before the shirt slipped down to the floor. He was a sight that knocked Roxas properly breathless, and the smug look on his face did nothing to help that.

His bottom lip hurt; he didn’t realize to have been biting it.

Axel dove for him, mouth on his own, a hand pushing him down, setting him onto the mattress, and he complied, because he always had. That simple gesture immediately tried to take him away from the present, but he noticed, heart skipping a beat, body moving quickly to cut the similarities short with fingers tangled up in Axel’s wild hair and a palm pressed to his chest, feeling him up, the size of his pectorals, the ripples of his stomach, the thickness of his waist, over the designs that made him unique, that burned under the skin, that set him apart from the memories. It worked, and the more he thought of Axel, of Axel’s body, of Axel’s presence above him, the more grounded he became. He held onto that for dear life.

Axel laid on him and those hundred and sixty pounds of lean muscle were heavy, pushed him down into the mattress, chest to chest and stomach touching, big arms boxing him in, wide shoulders framing his neck; the complete disconnect from the memories was so heavenly that a sigh escaped his lips and was promptly swallowed down Axel’s throat. A firm hand grabbed his jaw, steered the kiss to Axel’s liking, dug fingers into his cheeks, made his face burn and the hands on Axel’s back grasp at skin, vastly unnoticed. The fingers almost hurt, tilted his head up, moved it with the motions of Axel’s tongue in his throat and had his heart racing against his ribs, a moan stuck behind his lips. He felt hot, skin lit on fire, Axel’s body singeing his own and he wanted more of it. With eyes squeezed shut and Axel’s teeth on his lip, he reached down, a palm sliding along Axel’s back over to the front of his pants. He grabbed the belt buckle there, fingers stuffed under the waistband for emphasis, drawing a sharp inhale from the redhead that set him alight, had his hips bucking up. That wanted to make his mind slip away with a memory, but he quickly pulled Axel’s waist closer, thick thighs in between his own, pushing them apart, Axel’s big body keeping him in the moment. The hips above him ground down, heavy and hard, Axel graciously complying to his silent demand and making his legs rise up to meet at the ankles.  

Axel was heavy and rough but precise, hands always in the right places, bodies perfectly set together, touches that arched his back and kisses that muffled him quiet. Axel was good, better than good, absolutely fucking sinful and there was no comparing him to anyone else. What they had felt like nothing that the memories would’ve ever been able to bring him, and he fucking loved it, completely drunk on it, anchored down to the moment, heart pounding, mind entirely within this room, this life, this reality. It was the closest that he had ever gotten to being human, it felt like, despite everything else; the visions, the lies, the overlapping lives. This felt genuine and entirely of his own making.

Interestingly enough, it only took the one time for that to become a thing between them. Whereas every other intimacy, the kissing, the hugging had taken Axel multiple days to catch on, this was a done deal that had left him with no doubt about where they stood, and had him repeating the process in the shower the next morning, after their separate missions later that night, the next day, and the day after that, like a mantra, a pattern to look forward to, and which Roxas did, very much so. It was the one certainty that would get him to see Axel again and be with him for the very limited time that they still had together, days counting down to hours counting down to minutes. It gave him the jitters, thinking about that; cooled his veins into icicles and tried to pour out of his eyes, but he didn’t let it get to him too much, clinging to the moment when Axel would be home again, kissing his face and holding him close. He didn’t get hung up on the future when Axel was around, giving him something else to focus on, which he appreciated very dearly. Axel was too sweet.

He started to catch himself staring at Axel’s face more often these days, whenever they hung out together, usually after they were done with each other, getting dry after the shower, or laying around before bed, once in Axel’s car before coming home, once before dinner when they got back early, and literally anytime that Axel was in his sight, on the couch with him, getting ready in the morning, reporting back to Saix in the evening. He stared at the shape of Axel’s mouth, at the movements of his hand, at the way that he laughed, the brightness of his face, the attention of his green eyes. How much he joked around, but how much he listened, too, serious when needed; how his brows creased right in the middle, how his jaw set, how his shoulders squared out. Staring at Axel, being around Axel, existing under Axel’s attention made his heart beat differently, slower, deeper, made him breathe longer and his skin tingle, eyes wide, chest full. He didn’t know what it meant, but it resonated with a memory, or multiple memories, and told him it was good. It felt good, so he believed in that incorporeal hunch for once, not at war with it at all times, not when he had a lot more to worry about.

The last day dawned with an empty half of the bed. The bathroom was silent, the shower wasn’t on, and the outside of the door was loud when it usually wasn’t, booming voices talking over each other, the hustle and bustle of a busy morning. His heart immediately sped off at the thought of having missed the departure, but he tried not to panic, and told himself that Axel wasn’t gone yet. He wouldn’t just leave without saying goodbye, he couldn’t do that. He wouldn’t do that. Breathing in deep, he got up, didn’t find it within himself the composure needed to get properly dressed before running out of the room, slipped on a pair of boxers and ran out of the room, down the stairs, toward all of the noise.

On the second floor, a lot of people were up and about, walking from here to there in the middle of tending to their own business, speaking with Saix all the time, surrounding him damn near, and seeming to only leave him alone dissatisfied. There were numerous bodies dressed in all black here, but he still tried his best to glance up at all of those uncovered faces, only some of which were actually familiar to him, the vast majority either new or not remarkable enough to remember. Bright and fiery red hair shouldn’t have been hard to find, he told himself while having a desperately hard time to find it amid everybody else, and failed to keep from panicking. Axel couldn’t have already left, he couldn’t. Roxas rushed further into the room, pushing through the crowd, getting angry glances here and there but not emotionally able enough to process any of them on his way to Saix, the only person who must’ve had answers around here.

“Where is he?” He interrupted carelessly, voice loud and breathless, eyes wide as he grabbed Saix’s jacket for attention.

The people around him did not enjoy his little interference, Saix being one of them, golden eyes sharp under a deep scowl that twisted his forehead scar into something horrible. Roxas didn’t care.

“Axel. Where is he?” He repeated, nearly on tiptoes now.

Saix glanced him down with disgust wrinkling his nose.

“Should be in the garage, if he’s still here, and put some goddamn clothes on.”

He ran.

The garage was accessed faster by the elevators than the fire escape, so he swallowed down the absolute need to exhaust himself looking for his friend and pressed the button, heart racing, feet jumping in place just to spend some pent up energy. He watched the numbers come up to meet him, definitely from the basement where Axel was, where Axel might’ve just left from, and hugged himself, breathing slowly, trying not to pass out.

A ding, he got on and pressed the button down.

The tall, wide mirror on the back wall reminded him of his half-nakedness, his gross chest scar, and the fact that he had just woken up, hair up and wild, bed sheet marks on his skin where he had slept on. Through the panic and the fear he felt stupid, coming down from the desperation a little, pathetic for caring so much about this, for letting it affect him so deeply. He ran a hand through his hair, fixed it a bit, rubbed uselessly at the marks on his skin and crossed both arms over the scar to hide it. He had always hated it. The elevator doors opened, and he turned around to leave, a very cold breeze hitting him square on and making him shiver, hug himself tighter.

Axel was still here. His Mercedes was parked, trunk popped open as he loaded it with a big suitcase, enough clothes for a very long time, it seemed. Roxas’ heart leapt up to his throat, eyes watering, but he swallowed it all down, quick, walking over to his best friend, shivering for two distinct reasons now.

“You motherfucker!” His voice strained, hurt his throat.

Axel glanced over at him, brows raised, one hand up on the trunk.

“Hey, baby.” Slow and calm and his chest hurt, the world blurred horribly, very quickly. Not that, not that word. Fuck, not that one; he could already feel himself crumble, shoulders sagging, heart in a million pieces, but still the tears didn’t spill. Not yet, but close. Too close. His throat closed, lips quivering, face burning in anger.

“Asshole.” It came out weak and powerless and it hurt, but it was all he could do without absolutely breaking down.

He was close enough now that Axel could touch him, and he did, a hand in his hair, carding through it, pulling him closer still. He gave into one step, but refused to go in for the hug.

“You knew I was gonna leave today.” Axel’s voice was soft and kind and he fucking hated it. “I told you that, Roxas.”

He shoved Axel away, two hands on his stomach, hard enough to make him stumble back a step.

“That’s _not_ why I’m here.” He shouted, Axel’s face a blur behind the wall of tears that refused to fall. “You fucking idiot, I wanted you to say goodbye to me.”

“I didn’t wanna wake you.” Surprised, offended; he fucking loathed him.

“Fuck you, that’s not true. That’s not why you left, ‘cause if you really think I’d give a shit about that, then you don’t know the first thing about me, and you _do._ You just wanted to run.”

Axel was silent. From behind the tears, he couldn’t see the look on Axel’s face, so he shut his eyes and squeezed them clear, immediately wiping at them with a hand afterwards, unable to keep himself from sobbing. It was stupid, but it came from deep within, straight from the heart, and shook his shoulders anyway, unavoidable. He rubbed at his eyes some more, opened them, and saw the heartbreaking sadness on the greens that watched him, shiny under the bright garage lights. He wanted to punch Axel in the face.

“I’m sorry.” It sounded genuine, but he really didn’t care.

He shook his head, the tears still spilling down his cheeks, impossible to stop now. He had started it knowing full well what would’ve happened, resented his choice, but couldn’t do anything about it this far in.

“Whatever.” He sniffled through the word, rubbing at his face still. It started to burn from that. “I don’t get you, man. You’re gonna be gone forever and you just, you fucking disappear on me? You _know_ I wanted to say goodbye to you, Axel, what the fuck.” He sobbed out the last sentence, his breathing ragged, his chest aching. “This is important to me.”

Axel opened his mouth to defend himself, but, instead of doing that, just kind of stared.

“Look.” He breathed in deep, skin shivering from the cold. His hands closed in fists. “If you wanna run, Axel, then just run.” He shrugged and hugged himself again, rubbing at his upper arms, feeling his fingers start to freeze.

“I guess I’ll just go.”

“No, wait.”

He made a motion to leave, but Axel stopped him with a hand on the shoulder, stepping up beside him. He watched Axel slip his jacket off and drape it across his back, over his shoulders, pulling it closed in front of his chest, holding him by the collar of it. He knew that Axel was looking at him, but he didn’t have the strength to lift his eyes, suddenly very drained and very weak after all of it. A hand found his hair, brushed the bangs up his forehead, out of his face. He closed his eyes.

“I’m sorry, Roxas, I just, I don’t do… This.”

He shook his head the tiniest bit, leaning it on Axel’s chest for support. It was the opening needed for an arm to coil around him into the hug that he had been very poorly trying to avoid, just as warm as he imagined it would’ve been, and just as comforting, too. There was no fighting it, really, so he nestled the side of his face on Axel’s shirt, breathing in the tobacco and vanilla of his skin.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

A sigh, sounding from deep within, right under his ear.

“I just...” A pause, the hand on his head lifted and he knew Axel was motioning speechlessly into the air, trying to find his words, trying to articulate himself.

Nothing, and the hand dropped with an exhale, hanging at Axel’s side now, so he knew it didn’t work. Whatever Axel had been trying to conjure up died with his willingness to discuss it.

“Look, I’ll come back to you, alright? I can promise you that.”

He sounded resigned, but Roxas didn’t understand what this whole thing was about, what Axel had been trying to say; what he didn’t usually do, and, Roxas guessed, acquiesced in doing this time around, for an undisclosed reason. He moved up to look into Axel’s face, feeling a small crease form in between his brows.

“What are you talking about?”

Axel ran a hand through his own hair, something passing across his face as they stared at each other, a realization of sorts covered in despair. He knew something that Roxas didn’t, possibly something alarming which made him feel both stupid, and worried, for not knowing the first thing about it, not even remotely.

“What?” He urged, his cheeks drier now, but the underside of his eyes still burning from all of the rubbing earlier.

Uncontestedly, he was an idiot.

Axel touched the side of his face with a hand and leaned down to plant a kiss on his head, the universal language of pity that confirmed to him just how clueless he was right now. He pulled away to read Axel’s eyes again, but they were back to normal, to looking at him the way Axel always did, that same warmth, that same congeniality on the greens that watched his every move to make sure that he wouldn’t run into any danger. He swallowed, shoulders drooping even if his legs were still very much cold and his feet were practically frozen on the cold garage floor.

“It’ll be okay.” Axel reassured him, voice low, the look on his face very loving; a rerun of when Roxas had first knocked on his bedroom door. “I’ll be back soon.”

“Sure.”

He wanted to believe that more than he really did.


	3. In his own hands

Axel left with a promise to call him whenever he could, and Roxas held onto that for the rest of the day. For the rest of the week, really, if he was being honest. He thought about it every day, on missions, over meals, in Axel’s room, sleeping with his phone under the pillow just in case, and carrying it around with him at all times now, when he usually didn’t. Before, he barely ever had his phone on him, because he never really used it, had never really needed to, and always forgot to bring on missions, the sole reason why he owned one at all, but, now, it had become part of him, a direct and only line from him to Axel that let him know how his friend had been doing. 

Over the first week, there was no call, but Axel texted him every other day telling him that he had been very busy because the plan had been going perfectly, which, to him, had been both great and awful news. He generally tried to keep a positive mindset about it, because, in the emptiness of Axel’s room, that was all he really had, and was just glad to have been hearing from his friend in the first place. It could’ve been much worse, he told himself, alone under the covers; he could’ve not even had a phone at all, so he took the texts as a saving grace and didn’t complain. Didn’t mention how horribly he had been sleeping, or how terribly he had been feeling, both emotionally and physically, having gotten progressively weaker since the departure. It felt as if his vital energy had been waning, slowly leaving him, making him choke on sobs every other hour and not want to part from Axel’s couch, where he had been sleeping lately, because the bed now only brought him upsetting memories of everything that they had done together. He felt sluggish and weak, only leaving the room for missions, and coming straight back to it when he was done. Saix knew that he had been taking Axel’s room, as did everybody else, he was sure, but it didn’t bother him. He honestly did not care about that.

Axel called him ten days in, and he almost couldn’t believe his eyes when they read the name on the screen. In the middle of a recon mission with Demyx, he turned right around, rushed to a corner, and picked up. 

“Axel.” Breathless, blues wide, he could feel them, holding onto that intake of air as a lifeline to reality, that this was really happening. 

“Hey, baby, are you busy?” His favorite voice, silky smooth, sweeter than sin wrapped up in velvet. He shut his eyes, heart beating stronger, deeper than it had all week. His knees bent and he slid down the wall to sit on the ground. 

“No, oh, my God, not at all. God, Axel, I missed you.” 

He sounded pathetic and desperate, but, right now, after what would’ve become two weeks of dry lips and empty hands, he didn’t give a shit. He really didn’t. 

“I missed you, too. How are you doing?” 

“Good, I’m fine.” He wasn’t. “When are you coming back?” 

“I don’t know yet, Roxas. I can’t even give you an estimate. It’s complicated.”

Complicated. His throat closed with an ache that spread down to his lungs, chest tightening, a hand up to grab at his own shirt. 

“Really?” 

“Yeah. I can’t give you much of an explanation, but I won’t be home very soon.” 

His mind clocked out entirely at that. “Not very soon” could’ve meant anything, from being back within the month to within the year, from wait for me because we’ll pick it up from where we left off to don’t wait and move on, from I’ll remember you when I’m back to I’ve become someone else completely without you. He wanted to scream; it was very cruel for Axel to not have the slightest idea of an answer, a simple estimate. A wait for me or a move on, at the least. Anything. It took all of himself to not text Axel the same question everyday, is it going to be today? Are you coming back today? Are you coming back at all? Days turned into a week, that week inched towards becoming two, and the questions started to pile up, choke him slowly. 

Under a blanket on Axel’s couch, he sobbed. Both hands clutched the blanket to his face, holding on for dear life, eyes squeezed shut, burning, his chest moving erratically as he breathed, one jagged inhale at a time. His body hurt, curled up in a little ball, unable to feel anything other than a deep seated ache that radiated from his heart and up his throat, that tied his voice in a painful knot, that made his face warm and his fingers cold. He pulled the blanket over his head and breathed. 

He called Axel. It must’ve been way past commercial hours, but he did it anyway, desperately needing to hear his voice, to be reassured that they’d be okay, to have his name in Axel’s mouth again. It had barely been a month, and he was already in crumbles, bits of him sprawled out across Axel’s room and pieces lost, replaced with similar ones that didn’t fit right and made his body ache something awful. He rubbed at his eyes, sniffling as the call rang against his ear. 

“Roxas?” 

Axel’s voice alone was enough ecstasy to last him a lifetime. He breathed in. 

“Axel, I need you to come home.” He almost sounded on top of it, almost, but his voice cracked and a sob got caught deep in his throat. The tears still dripped to dampen the blanket, but he wasn’t watching, eyes lost in the darkness that surrounded him. “Please.” 

“I’ll be home soon.” 

His heart immediately sped off at that. 

“When?” 

Silence, and his lungs deflated again, heart sunk to the bottom of his ribcage. Axel’s reassurance only served to keep him quiet, to have him put up with this for longer. A hand came up to rest on his head, pull the blanket from his face. 

“Don’t answer me.” His voice was strained, hurt to speak. “Don’t even humor me. You’re not coming back.” 

“Yes, I am. I know that for a fact.” 

“Sure.”

“Roxas, the mission will be accomplished, and I’ll come back home. That’s how it always goes, it just takes some time, alright? Trust me, baby, I’ll see you again.” A breath. “Calm down.”

Heat rose up to his face in shame. The lengths that he’d go to act, look and sound pathetic were limitless. His eyes burned again, and the room swam underwater for a while. 

“Fine. Sorry.” 

End of the call. 

He didn’t get over that, or any of this, or any of what had been happening, but, by the end of the week, he had changed. He had become a new person, not from acceptance or any type of healthy, emotional, or spiritual growth, but from something else, dark and painful, that hardened the edges and put a fire in his core, that burned his eyes and closed his hands in fists. Hurt, lonely, bitter and powered by an uncharacteristically inflated ego, he decided to go see Axel. If Axel couldn’t come to him, then he’d go to him. It was that simple. 

Problem number one hit him immediately upon his decision, because he had no idea where the warehouse was. He knew it was moderately far, but still in town, accessible by car. He didn’t know what it looked like or which neighborhood it belonged to, but, he supposed, if he could find it, then everything else standing in between him and Axel would be very easy to destroy in comparison. Once he knew where to go, there would literally be nothing able to stop him, and that thought fired up his confidence to dangerous levels, but just about enough to have him listening into conversations at the building, stalking people around, and even talking to them in unsuspecting ways, topics that varied from the weather to if  _ they _ had access to the warehouse. Surprisingly, not a lot of them did. The warehouse seemed to be of much higher security than here, only available to higher positions in the organization, people who Saix really trusted. 

Saix. Of course he’d be behind all of this, responsible for overseeing everything that ever happened from here to the warehouse and back. He must’ve known where it was. Clearly, out of anyone in this building, he’d be the one to know all about it, except that gaining this kind of information wouldn’t be easy, not when Roxas wasn’t allowed to have it. He couldn’t simply go up to the guy and ask him, or even try to slip his way into an innocent conversation that ended up there, because Saix wasn’t an idiot. Everybody else here might’ve been, but Saix wasn’t, so he’d have to get creative, and it took him a while to finally hatch the perfect plan. 

It started by figuring out which of the penthouse rooms was Saix’s office, but a couple of days crouched behind a big potted plant by the stairway watching the entire floor let him know not only that, but also Saix’s code for the door and his hours in and out of the office. In juxtaposition, he also learned Xemnas’ hours, which were much lengthier and often took up major chunks of the night for a reason that he didn’t care to know. All that he needed from this was the slim period late at night when the floor would be completely empty and the code to get through Saix’s door. Next, the security camera that watched both offices. He didn’t know if the footage was being recorded, but it was safer to assume that it was, meaning he’d have to do all of the remaining steps of the plan on the same night of the escape, because he didn’t know where the control rooms were and didn’t have a single clue about how cameras worked. It’d be fine. He didn’t have any of the other steps figured out yet, but it’d be fine. He felt that as a vibration in the middle of his chest. He could do this. 

It took him a couple of days to really be prepared for that, but even with only step one thought out all the way through and the rest of the plan leaning on complete improvisation, he still believed that he could make it. His odds were okay, he thought, and slipped into Saix’s office at the perfect time, with the correct code. 

This place was relatively modest for being the second in command’s office, all white carpet and black furniture, a bookshelf, a computer, but he didn’t really think much of that, because Saix barely stayed in here. Most of his time at the penthouse was usually spent in their boss’ office, so he probably didn’t even mind the lack of comfort in here. Roxas closed the door behind himself and sat down at the computer desk, next to a fake potted plant. It asked for a login password, as computers usually did, and that caught him completely off guard somehow. In the middle of his Mission Impossible-esque antics, he had forgotten all about how computers worked and didn’t have the faintest idea of what the password could’ve been. All that he knew so far was the door code, so he tried that, just in case, and, miraculously, it worked. He didn’t think about that ever again. 

There was nothing open, no files, no documents, no browsers, no leads to the warehouse’s address, meaning he’d have to start with the obvious, Saix’s email history, and work from there. He clicked on the hotbar icon and watched Saix’s inbox load up on the screen. 

Surprisingly, Saix didn’t have as much mail as Roxas would’ve thought, but, then again, he had never needed to mail Saix himself, so he supposed that a succinct amount should’ve been expected. Examining the first few, he soon realized that Saix only used his email for very important business, not anything trivial, which also explained it. He clicked on the search bar and looked up the word warehouse. A few dozen results came up, the newest ones at the top and the oldest ones at the bottom, most of them conversations between him and Xemnas, or Xigbar, or Axel. One of the top results had an attachment to it, so he checked that out before inevitably clicking on Axel’s name. To his ultmost luck, the attachment was a PDF file with an address on it.

 

> \---
> 
> From: Saix 
> 
> Sent at 8:46 AM on November 16th 2018
> 
> To: Xemnas
> 
> Subject: Electricity Bill
> 
>  
> 
> Sir,
> 
> As requested, the warehouse’s electricity bill from last month. 
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Saix
> 
> \---

 

He saved the billing address on his phone, refrained from celebrating too loudly, and immediately looked up Axel’s name on the search bar. The results were numerous, ranging from mission information to mission status, no fun, no jokes, only serious business, which was a little out of character for Axel, who loved to mix up his personal friendship with Saix and their job interactions, but maybe this was different; he seemed to have been taking it a lot more seriously than he normally would. Roxas scrolled down a good number of emails, aimless until he saw his own name on the screen, which made him stop and promptly click on it. 

 

> \---
> 
> From: Axel
> 
> Sent at 4:02 AM on November 24th 2018
> 
> To: Saix
> 
> Subject: The mission
> 
>  
> 
> Hey, Saix.
> 
> I know I didn’t catch you tonight, we just got back. Bad news is, the chase went to complete shit because a few of Ansem’s men decided to jump us and push Roxas off the Rothery Bridge. Good news is, he’s fine, I got him out of the lake in time, but, you guessed it, more bad news, the motherfuckers ran and our target disappeared. You’ll love me for that in the morning. 
> 
> Don’t forget I’m going to Hollow Bastion in four hours, so don’t send Roxas on any missions until I’m back. He’s recovering. 
> 
> Axel.
> 
> \--
> 
> From: Saix
> 
> Sent at 7:23 AM on November 24th 2018
> 
> To: Axel
> 
> Re: The mission
> 
>  
> 
> Axel,
> 
> The failure of last night’s mission rests on your shoulders. Snow’s capture still stands as your responsibility, and whether Ansem’s men ran or not doesn’t necessarily matter here; they’re not your target. 
> 
> Your priorities should be revised, given that Snow could definitely have been tailed to her final objective last night, regardless of unaccounted for incidents. You’ve lost our only lead on her, knowing very well that we need her captured by the 30th. Good luck, you’ve got six days. 
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Saix
> 
> \--
> 
> From: Axel
> 
> Sent at 7:24 AM on November 24th 2018
> 
> To: Saix
> 
> Re: Re: The mission
> 
>  
> 
> Saix,
> 
> I’ll bring her to you, chill. The loss of a lead is not the end of the world here; I’ve been dealt worse hands in the past and I’ve turned out just fine, you know that. Literally don’t worry about the capture. 
> 
> I need you to understand that Roxas fell from a BRIDGE into a FREEZING LAKE and survived. You ever think about that? Just think about that for a second. I wasn’t about to pull him out and leave him to freeze just to run back and make sure that Snow really walked into that bar. I already know she did. 
> 
> Roxas was literally freezing to death, man. I brought him home immediately because that’s what I promised I’d do. From the beginning, he’s been priority number one, remember? When you put him under my care, I swore that nothing would be more important than him, and that’s still true; it’ll take more than some beginner’s stalking mission to make me break my oath. Good luck. 
> 
> Hey, this is not a rerun of Xion, yeah? I learned my lesson, you know that, but if you still want to argue about my decisions regarding Roxas’ safety, I’ll be back before nine tonight. Hit me up. 
> 
> Axel.
> 
> \--
> 
> From: Saix
> 
> Sent at 7:01 AM on November 27th 2018
> 
> To: Axel
> 
> Re: Re: Re: The mission
> 
>  
> 
> Axel,
> 
> You didn’t report back last night. 
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Saix
> 
> \--
> 
> From: Axel
> 
> Sent at 7:02 AM on November 27th 2018
> 
> To: Saix
> 
> Re: Re: Re: Re: The mission
> 
>  
> 
> I know man sorry. Ansem’s thugs are no longer a problem. I’ll be reporting on Snow ASAP. 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
> \---
> 
>  

He read the third to last email over and over, his heart beating deeper, his chest growing warmer with each word. It put the ghost of a smile on his face and made him scroll down the search results for more conversations about him. To his luck, he found one from the middle of last year, when he had just started going on missions and Axel still used to be more of a babysitter than a real friend. 

 

> \---
> 
> From: Saix
> 
> Sent at 7:46 PM on July 8th 2017
> 
> To: Axel
> 
> Subject: Roxas 
> 
>  
> 
> Axel,
> 
> How has our assassin in training been doing? I’d like for you to evaluate his performance thus far. 
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Saix
> 
> \--
> 
> From: Axel
> 
> Sent at 8:03 PM on July 8th 2017
> 
> To: Saix
> 
> Re: Roxas
> 
>  
> 
> Saix,
> 
> Today was his first real hit on a target and he didn’t even flinch. He’s been acting less like a zombie and more like a regular husk now, asking questions and holding conversation. He asked me what souls were. I told him about you. 
> 
> No real kill yet, but I see great potential in him. I thought he was a slow learner, but he’s been doing so well that I’m not so sure about that anymore. Maybe he just needed time to adapt to his new life, maybe Xion was just smarter. 
> 
> Overall grade? Fucking A. 
> 
> Axel. 
> 
> \---

 

Fucking A! The grin on his face was so big that it could’ve split it right in half. He scrolled some more, down to last year’s April when he had just come to be. 

 

> \---
> 
> From: Saix
> 
> Sent at 9:21 PM on April 12th 2017
> 
> To: Axel
> 
> Subject: Number XIII
> 
>  
> 
> Axel, good evening. 
> 
> Don’t forget that you’re coming with me early tomorrow morning to pick up Number XIII. As you already know, you’ll be responsible for them and their training, as well as their future success. Don’t let this become a rerun of Number XIV. 
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Saix
> 
> \--
> 
> From: Axel
> 
> Sent at 9:30 PM on April 12th 2017
> 
> To: Saix
> 
> Re: Number XIII
> 
>  
> 
> Hey, Saix.
> 
> Can we quit it with the number shit? It doesn’t make sense. We’ve been a total of thirty-six members for the last four years; just give this husk a name and forget the number alias. It’s stupid, Number VII. 
> 
> Also, don’t bring Xion up like that. Actually, don’t talk about her at all. The new kid will be taken far better care of, you’ve got my word. 
> 
> Axel.
> 
> \--
> 
> From: Axel
> 
> Sent at 9:52 AM on April 13th 2017
> 
> To: Saix
> 
> Re: Number XIII
> 
>  
> 
> Sorry for leaving, I’m gonna need some time. 
> 
> Axel. 
> 
> \--
> 
> From: Saix
> 
> Sent at 9:54 AM on April 13th 2017
> 
> To: Axel
> 
> Re: Re: Number XIII
> 
>  
> 
> Axel,
> 
> What happened? I thought you were ready for this again. You told me that just last week. In fact, I’d go so far as to say you were adamant about it. Did his actual, physical presence make you change your mind? The schedule is already set, he’s already here, and I’ll need you to do your part. You can’t back out now. 
> 
> Best regards, 
> 
> Saix
> 
> \--
> 
> From: Axel
> 
> Sent at 10:00 AM on April 13th 2017
> 
> To: Saix
> 
> Re: Re: Re: Number XIII
> 
>  
> 
> I’m not backing out, I just need the day off. 
> 
> Axel.
> 
> \--
> 
> From: Saix
> 
> Sent at 10:01 AM on April 13th 2017
> 
> To: Axel
> 
> Re: Re: Re: Re: Number XIII
> 
>  
> 
> Axel,
> 
> Absolutely not. This is Roxas’ first day here; he needs you more than ever. Don’t be an idiot. Meet us at the Grand Hall before twelve; you’ve got two hours to get your shit together, and I expect you to act like the man I know when I see you again. 
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Saix
> 
> \---

 

He squinted at the screen. He didn’t remember Axel bailing on him on day one, but, then again, he didn’t remember anything from that time, or the entire two first months of his life. Still, something big must’ve scared Axel off, or affected him in some way, because he had never known Axel to run from anything. Maybe it had something to do with this Number XIV person, the first run. Xion. In the more recent threads, Axel had seemed very upset at the simple mention of this name, so that must’ve been it. Xion had been his apprentice, too, but something must’ve happened to her, or happened between the two of them, that had made Saix not want a repeat of it, and had weighed heavily on Axel ever since. There had been a connection between them, that was for sure; Axel seemed awfully defensive of her still. 

A cold, sharp feeling punctured him through the chest, and he didn’t want to read about this person anymore. He was only snooping around to know more about himself, about Axel’s unbiased thoughts on him, not Axel’s life before him, what he used to do without him, who had been his connections then. He didn’t want to know that. He really didn’t. Clicking the email out of the screen, he scrolled back up, slower this time around, searching for his own name on the previews, aiming for the period between the first two threads to make sure that he hadn’t missed anything. No, but there was a newer one that he had glanced over the first time around. 

 

> \---
> 
> From: Saix
> 
> Sent at 9:43 AM on December 30th 2018
> 
> To: Axel
> 
> Subject: Roxas
> 
>  
> 
> Good morning, Axel. 
> 
> Status report on Roxas’ health? He’s scheduled to the shooting range with Xigbar this week. 
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Saix
> 
> \--
> 
> From: Axel
> 
> Sent at 9:44 AM on December 30th 2018
> 
> To: Saix
> 
> Re: Roxas
> 
>  
> 
> Saix,
> 
> Not a chance. He’s sleep deprived and acting weird, so guns are a definite no go. Don’t schedule him with Xigbar, Xaldin, Larxene or Marluxia. Do something less dangerous, like recon with Demyx. That’ll be fine. 
> 
> Axel. 
> 
> \---

 

He was supposed to have gun? Two months ago, he was supposed to have gotten his grubby little hands on a real gun, holy shit. Holy shit. The thought raised his brows, sent him reeling. Axel had never let him touch one. 

 

> \---
> 
> From: Saix
> 
> Sent at 8:32 AM on January 13th 2019
> 
> To: Axel
> 
> Subject: Roxas’ Schedule
> 
>  
> 
> Axel, 
> 
> It’s been over a month; I’m sending him on solo missions. 
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Saix
> 
> \--
> 
> From: Axel
> 
> Sent at 8:33 AM on January 13th 2019
> 
> To: Saix
> 
> Re: Roxas’ Schedule
> 
>  
> 
> Solo is fine. Pair him up with me on mon wed fri next week. Thanks. 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
> \--
> 
> From: Saix
> 
> Sent at 8:45 AM on January 13th 2019
> 
> To: Axel
> 
> Re: Re: Roxas’ Schedule
> 
>  
> 
> Axel,
> 
> Monday is a no; you’re going to Hollow Bastion. Wednesday sure, but Friday I’ll have to check. 
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Saix
> 
> \--
> 
> From: Axel
> 
> Sent at 1:03 PM on January 13th 2019
> 
> To: Saix
> 
> Re: Re: Re: Roxas’ Schedule
> 
>  
> 
> Do tue wed fri then. Don’t pair him with Xigbar or Larxene. 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
> \--
> 
> From: Saix
> 
> Sent at 1:16 PM on January 13th 2019
> 
> To: Axel
> 
> Re: Re: Re: Re: Roxas’ Schedule
> 
>  
> 
> Axel,
> 
> Last I checked,  _ I _ was the one responsible for everyone’s schedules, or have you gotten promoted without my knowledge? You’re not his babysitter anymore, haven’t been for a good while now. Roxas can take care of himself. 
> 
> He’s going to the shooting range next week. 
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Saix
> 
> \--
> 
> From: Axel
> 
> Sent at 1:16 PM on January 13th 2019
> 
> To: Saix
> 
> Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Roxas’ Schedule
> 
>  
> 
> Saix,
> 
> Where’s your phone? Either pick up or fucking text me back. 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
> \---

 

This had been the last mention of his name in Saix’s inbox. He wondered what Axel had told their boss over the phone, and why he was so steadfastly against the training, against Roxas carrying a gun at all. It came as no surprise that whatever Axel had said had worked and kept him from having even been to the shooting range, because Axel always got what he wanted, especially in regards to diktats within the organization, connections included. He knew his assets and how to use them, but why was the gun such a big deal? It was obvious that he didn’t trust Roxas with one, having said in the past that that was due to his lack of proper training, but if Axel was the one keeping him from that, then the issue had always been something else. He had never even been allowed to hold his friend’s pistol. What was Axel so afraid of? 

He had mentioned Roxas’ sleep deprivation before, as a sort of weak justification for his opposing decision, but that couldn’t have been it. He didn’t know about the hallucinations or how convincingly they blended with reality sometimes, or that would’ve been enough reason to warrant Roxas  _ never _ getting his hands on any type of weapon, not even the daggers that he had, or the swords that he occasionally wielded at the field. In truth, had Axel known, he probably would’ve been retired from the force. He would’ve understood that. 

All the way up Saix’s inbox, he clicked onto the newest thread on the screen, the latest one having been sent only a couple of days ago.

 

> \---
> 
> From: Axel
> 
> Sent at 9:48 AM on February 28th 2019
> 
> To: Saix
> 
> Subject: Mission Status
> 
>  
> 
> Saix, 
> 
> What’s the status on our client? The longer quietus takes, the worse this entire thing is gonna get. 
> 
> Axel. 
> 
> \--
> 
> From: Saix
> 
> Sent at 11:23 AM on February 28th 2019
> 
> To: Axel
> 
> Re: Mission Status
> 
>  
> 
> Axel,
> 
> His family took hold of the room and we no longer have access to it outside of Dr Zexion’s reach. Last night’s heart attack seemed promising, but they managed to reanimate him and have now hooked him up. We might need someone to pull the plug, though it’s uncertain yet who. Stay in touch with Zexion. 
> 
> How’s the merch?
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Saix
> 
> \--
> 
> From: Axel
> 
> Sent at 12:01 PM on February 28th 2019
> 
> To: Saix
> 
> Re: Re: Mission Status
> 
>  
> 
> Saix,
> 
> Great, I’ll get Zexion working on that. 
> 
> Sora still shouts and curses me out, but he finally stopped trying to break through tempered glass with his weak little body, so that’s… 
> 
> \---

 

A sudden sharp pain on his right arm, coiled all around his wrist, made him tear his eyes away from the screen and stop reading for a second. He grabbed it with his free hand, squeezing his arm where it pulsed and ached to maybe make it stop, but it only got worse, spread up his forearm, almost to his elbow. It felt like his muscles were being twisted, and it hurt so fucking bad that he couldn’t keep quiet, a groan escaping his lips, eyes squeezed shut, fingers digging into his jacket sleeve. He whimpered, screamed, his eyes watered, his body bent over his arm on the chair, gripping it hard until it lessened, quickly and considerably, as if someone had let go of him and let his arm twist back around to normalcy. He breathed in, the tears over his eyes dripping down to color his jacket darker. 

He didn’t know what that had been, but ran out of Saix’s office as soon as it was over. 

In his room, his own room this time, he grabbed a backpack and threw some clothes in it, toiletries, a towel, zipped it up and put it on. He didn’t know how long he’d be gone for, how long it’d take to get to the warehouse, or what their boss would do upon inspection of the camera footage, so he prepared for the worse, just in case. With his phone in a pocket and his wallet in the other, he strapped a dagger to a belt loop, hidden under his jacket, and slipped another in his boot, in its own compartment. He didn’t want to use them, but, should anything happen while he were out, he’d be able to defend himself.

Punching the address in his phone, he found out that the warehouse was almost two hours away by public transportation, corresponding to forty minutes by car, and quickly realized, to his own private embarrassment, that it was too late out to hop on a bus right now. He’d have to get undressed, get in bed and sleep until a more regular hour, when the world would be awake again, with people out on the streets and buses to pick them up. Slowly removing the backpack from around his shoulders, he was just glad to have been alone this entire time. 

The next morning had him scheduled for a mission with one of the other members, who, he was sure, would’ve told everyone of his disappearance if he didn’t show, and it was with an ugly scowl on his face that he spent that morning out, entirely against his will or better judgement. Saix would see that footage any time now, he knew that for a fact, and was only waiting to get called upstairs for an official dismissal. He didn’t get any calls during the mission, or back at the building, Saix barely batting an eye at his presence across the hallway when he arrived, meaning that he probably still had some time on his hands. He reported back and went to his room for further plotting. 

A more thorough search on his phone told him that he’d have to take two buses across town to the warehouse, or switch metro lines at one point, but the underground area made him nervous, with too many people in it knowing exactly what to do and where to go, wasting no time running him over to get to their destinations, while he barely even knew what the symbols on the signs meant or what he was supposed to be doing. Axel had guided him that one time through the maze, and he had only sat back and watched, following the redhead very closely, doing as he had been told. The two buses seemed to him a much easier way to get where he needed, so he picked up the backpack by the door and left right after lunch. 

Halfway down the elevator, his phone rang. On the screen was Axel’s name, and his heart choked him with the excitement that that brought all of a sudden, one huge punch to the gut that winded him on the spot. He picked up immediately. 

“Axel!” 

“Roxas, hey. How are you?” 

His heart was beating so fast that he could hear it pound right on his ears, deafening to the ding of the elevator, doors sliding open before him. 

“I’m good, I’m really great. How are you?” 

He walked out with the low and silky tone of Axel’s voice speaking to him. 

“I’m fine, baby. It’s all good here.” A short pause. “You sound chipper. What are you up to?” 

His blood ran cold. Fortunately, Axel couldn’t see his eyes doubling in size, or the slight loss of balance that nearly made him trip while crossing the entrance hall to the front door. 

“Nothing, I’m just, I’ve been thinking about you, and I’m glad you called. That’s all.” 

“Did I catch you at a bad time? Were you doing something bad?” The second question sounded a lot worse with how Axel asked it, making him picture the smirk and the glint on green eyes that must’ve accompanied it, the way that he teased just to play around. Roxas knew the game by now. 

“Oh, yeah. The worst thing. Demyx will never be the same after this.” 

“Really.” 

“Yeah. You know the sitar that he loves more than not having to leave his room for a mission?” 

Axel chuckled at that, successful at shooting both serotonin and adrenaline right up his veins. Pushing past the front door, he grinned. 

“Well, let’s just say that he has another reason to mope in bed now.” 

“Did you wreck his sitar?” 

“Unfortunately, this kind of information is classified. Sorry.” 

Axel snorted. 

“So I leave for a day and you turn into a vandal. Impressive development.” 

A laugh suddenly burst out from his throat, but it was dry, humorless and far too loud to have been genuine. Out amid the turbulence of the city streets, nobody gave him a single look for that. 

“A  _ day? _ Axel, you’ve been gone for  _ thirty-six days _ .” 

“Oh, chill, Roxas; that’s barely over a month, don’t be dramatic. You know I’ll be back as soon as I can.” 

“No, I’m past that. Just know that we’ll see each other very soon.” 

“Right, so calm down. Everything’s fine.” 

Axel didn’t know what he meant by that. 

“I know, I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m just stating facts. How’s the mission?” 

“It’s alright, it’s just taking a minute. I should’ve been done a while ago.” 

“What’s the holdup?” 

“Vital accomplishments outside of my control.” 

A little past one in the afternoon, the bus stop was empty. He took a seat under the see-through roof and watched the traffic, actively reading the numbers off of the buses that drove past, searching for the right one to take. 

“How’s your target doing?” 

“Still acting like a feral beast and refusing to eat, as if that’d be of any advantage to him. By the way, Roxas, tell me something. How’s your arm?” 

He froze, his body growing cold all of a sudden, petrified by the question, but Axel couldn’t mean what had happened last night. Surely, he meant anything else. He didn’t know. He couldn’t have known. 

“What?” 

“Your right arm, how is it looking?” 

Slowly, he glanced down at it, stretching his forearm out a bit, the jacket sleeve tugging back to reveal purple bruises on his wrist that made his eyes widen, breath come in shorter. They hadn’t been there last night. Resting the phone between his ear and a shoulder, he used his free hand to pull the sleeve further back and see clear fingerprints on the skin, burning to the touch, as if an entire hand had grabbed him there and twisted the flesh. It was fucked up and creepy and he covered it back up fast, holding both arms close to his chest, his back shivering, the hairs on his neck standing. He had no idea where that had come from, or why Axel knew about it,  _ if _ Axel knew about it, but, if he had to guess, if Axel really did know, then Saix’s office must’ve inhabited something that only he couldn’t see. A vengeful soul or an angry spirit or something; Saix was a reaper, after all, and he had no idea how these things worked, how that kind of job was done, except that Axel did. Axel knew everything. Surely, Saix knew that he had trespassed the night before and had already told Axel about it. Best of friends. 

He felt his heart skip for a different reason now. 

“It’s fine, why? What do you know?” 

“Does it hurt?” 

“No.” 

Not anymore, not nearly as much, though the skin was still very tender. On the other end, Axel hummed. 

“Those dreams that you used to have…” Axel spoke slowly, sounding thoughtful, making his heart speed. He didn’t like how Axel seemed to be on the verge of a discovery, clearly knowing far more than he did, lucid about something that was still a mystery to him. He held his breath. 

“The boy that you saw in the lake.” Axel continued. “What did he look like?” 

He wasn’t expecting that. 

“Uh, I’m not sure. I haven’t thought about him in a long time.” 

“Was a girl ever in your dreams?” 

“A girl? No, never. Not a girl.” 

“Did you dream last night?” 

“Um, yeah. Something about you and me having ice cream together.” 

“Ice cream.” Axel almost sounded delighted. 

“Yeah.” A pause, and then, with his heart on his sleeve, “I miss you.” 

An exhale on the other end of the line. 

“I know. I miss you, too.” 

The bus to halfway across town rounded a corner and faced him, bright numbers glowing at the very top of it. He stood up. 

“I have to go. I’ll see you later.” 

“Take care, Roxas.” 

He hung up and motioned to the driver. 


	4. The warehouse

The trip to his next stop took about fifty minutes, and dropped him off in the middle of a street that he had never been to before, by some businesses that he had never seen. He pulled out his phone and walked to the next bus stop, only to find that it didn’t exist. He had either followed the instructions wrong, got turned around, or the stop had simply never been there. He glanced about, read off the names of the streets, tried to match them to the ones in his phone and couldn’t. Fear crawled up his spine, but he swallowed it down for now, keeping a level head. This wasn’t the time to start doubting himself; he had to find the right place to take the next bus, and, since harboring a low profile was the only thing that kept a Nobody safe in this world, he didn’t ask for anyone’s help. He’d figure it out himself. 

Late in the afternoon, he approached the correct bus stop. It had taken him a ridiculously long amount of time to do it, two streets down and facing the wrong direction like a complete idiot, but he did it. He had turned the compass, gone around a couple of blocks, walked all the way down and back around and had finally caught sight of the one street name that he had needed this entire time. He followed it up to the bus stop and, as the sun began to set behind tall buildings, took a seat. Twenty minutes later, his bus showed up. 

The warehouse itself wasn’t difficult to find, not when he knew what to look for this time around; an inconspicuous business building with no name on it, probably no number, either, and possibly with a black Mercedes parked out front. Two blocks up the street and two corners later, he saw it, first the Mercedes, then the grayish hues of the building walls, nearly merging with the clouds. With his heart leaping for the roof of his mouth, he climbed up the porch steps and inspected the front door; no handle, only a keyhole, and no open windows, all shut with the curtains drawn from the inside. He tried pushing on the door, tried sliding it to both sides, tried searching for any crevice or gap to pull on but found nothing. It was impenetrable. 

“Roxas.” A voice called, loud, making him whip right around, eyes wide, both shoulders raised up to his ears. 

The man who addressed him wasn’t very familiar, but he wore all black like the rest of the members, was accompanied by other four similarly dressed, and brought him a vague remembrance of having met at the building before. Roxas mustered up a nonchalant greeting and a polite smile while the five other men walked up to him, the first guy leading the herd. 

“What are you doing here?” 

He was prepared for that question. 

“I’m supposed to meet up with Axel, but I’m not sure how this door works. I’ve never been here before.”

“Ah, it’s easy.” 

Bingo. A great lie never strayed too far from the truth.

“You place your hand right here on the scanner, it lights up the numbers, and you punch in your code. See?” 

The door slid open with a small sound. The helpful idiot next to him smiled, stepping aside so he could walk in first. He did so with a grateful little thank you so much. 

Inside, the walls were white and the furniture varied between black and gray, the place adorned in something of a minimalist decor, a single picture on top of two armchairs, a rug and a coffee table, a tall potted plant pushed to the corner. He walked to the center of the room and listened to the footsteps behind him march in, take a right for the stairs leading up. The front door closed with a hiss. He was alone. 

A distant voice broke the silence, a soundwave that he knew by heart, a low tone that never failed to make his pulse race. He followed it across the room and through an archway that led to a long corridor with a few doors on the left, one at the very end, and two other archways to the right. He stepped gingerly into the hallway, footfalls silent and soft, making no sound as his ears searched for that voice again, where it had come from. Silence, he past the first archway, then noise, a different tone, a voice that he didn’t know talking back, very quiet. He followed it into the second archway and through another semi-empty room with the same setup of the entrance hall, except this one was split in the middle by a wall of thick, clear glass, only broken by a door of steel bars that seemed to rise out of the ground and poke through the ceiling. 

He had reached the cells. At the end of the room was another archway, where Axel’s voice came through clearer now, getting louder as he approached it, still quiet, still silent. 

“No, but when we find him, you will.” 

“You’ll never find him. You’ll never get him.”

“Really, Sora, because he saved your life once already, didn’t he?” 

Silence. Roxas stopped by the archway, listening. 

“Why wouldn’t he do it again?” Axel continued. “This is the perfect trap. You’re right here.” 

“It’s been too long, asshole. He’s not coming.” 

“Do you feel it, Sora? The hopelessness?” 

“Fuck you.”

“What does it feel like?” 

“Fuck you!” 

He walked in. 

This room was exactly like the one before, except it had a captive behind the glass and the bars, a boy, short, brunette, relatively dark skinned, as if he had spent all of his days at the beach. He stood in the middle of the cell in only shorts and a tank top, barefooted, hands curled in fists, his image a little blurry at times due to big smudges on the glass. He stared straight ahead in anger, brows knit hard together until Roxas walked in, catching his attention, making those two bright blues fix themselves on him and bring him all the way back to the lake, to the dark, to the cold, when he drowned and this boy sunk right along with him. In shock, he stepped toward the cell. 

“You.” 

“Roxas.” 

Axel’s voice cut through him like a knife, loud enough to pull his mind back to the present. He stood across from the captive, near the coffee table and the two armchairs, seeming to have just gotten up from the one behind him. The size of his greens showed his surprise, and the deep scowl on his forehead let Roxas know that his presence here was both not wanted and a terrible idea. He didn’t care about either of that, though; his brain quickly reverted back to the boy who stood only a few feet from him, tugging on his memory like the waves that pull at the sand. The boy who, somehow, still lived.  

“This is him.” He stretched out an arm, pointing at the captive, both of his eyes glued on Axel’s face, wide and round. “He was there, in the lake.” 

In the small timeframe which he talked, Axel crossed the room towards him in quick strides that made his coattail slap the heel of his boots. He didn’t exactly stop by Roxas, only set a hand on his shoulder and turned him around to face a white door at the end of the room, by the entrance archway, almost invisible on the expanse of white that covered every wall in here. With an arm across his shoulders, Axel dragged him toward the door. 

“Let’s talk outside.” 

He tried to turn back around, but the arm that held him was strong, the body next to his own prepared for struggle. Axel pushed him forward as he twisted to glance back and up at him. 

“Axel, he was in the lake!” He shouted, heart hammering. “It was _ him!” _

“What are you talking about?” The boy asked from behind him, clearly audible despite the tempered glass. 

He craned his neck aside to peek from the edge of Axel’s arm, still twisted around, tripping on himself as Axel manhandled him out, but to no avail; his best friend was too big, too tall, far stronger than his futile resistance. All he could do was stumble, fall against the broad chest that blocked any view of the cell, and be pushed into the next room. 

Axel shut the door behind himself and stood in front of it, guarding it with wide shoulders and a mean look on his face, less than impressed. Normally, that would’ve been enough to have Roxas burning in shame and blubbering out every apology in the book, but today was far from normal; this entire situation was absolutely insane. It made no fucking sense. How was the boy alive? How and why was he here, of all places? So he was Axel’s target, did this mean that Axel knew who he was? He must have; he had asked Roxas about him mere hours ago. Maybe that had been the reason for capture in the first place. 

“What are you doing here?” Axel sounded pissed, but he couldn’t find it within himself to care about that right now. “ _ How _ are you here?” 

“You knew about him, didn’t you?” He interrupted, stepping into Axel’s personal space for attention, eyes wide. “You knew he was there that night. You made me think I was crazy, but I was right. He was there.”

“Sora has nothing to do with the lake. Get over yourself.” 

“You  _ just _ asked me about him over the phone!”

“No, I didn’t. Roxas, you’re supposed to be home.” 

“You saw him, too.” He breathed. “You saw him at the lake. You knew he was there, and that’s why you brought him here. Right? You’re not going to harvest his soul; he’s not here for that. Is he? No, he’s not. You can’t do that, you can’t. You can’t--”

Axel grabbed him by the shoulders, two heavy hands clasping down on them, strong and firm, making him wince reflexively, ready for the shake, expecting it with eyes shut and his face turned aside, waiting for something that didn’t come. Axel simply leaned down to be at eye level with him, physical contact for emphasis and attention, to make him stare into the annoyance of the greens that watched him. The grip didn’t hurt.

“Roxas, you’re not supposed to be here.” Slow and clear.

He shrugged himself free.

“What are you not telling me?” He asked, ignoring his friend’s attempts at getting rid of him. He steadfastly refused to go while the boy who drowned remained behind bars. “What do you know?” 

Axel straightened back up, said nothing. Clearly not in any way inclined to answer that, so he tried a different approach.

“How is he still alive?” 

Axel’s greens squinted, eyebrows twitching in irritation. Roxas knew this look well, only it felt different from the receiving end of it. 

“Roxas, he was never in the lake. He wasn’t there that night.”

“Yes, he was. I saw him there.”

“No, you didn’t.” 

He huffed. His forehead creased into a deep scowl and a long breath filled his chest, but he finally dropped the antagonism. For now. Agree to disagree, he fucking guessed, because Axel clearly didn’t want to change his mind about this, showed no signs of even have been listening to him, so fuck it. This was a massive waste of time. Swallowing his rebuttal behind gritted teeth, he felt it scrape the back of his throat on the way down. 

“He’s here because someone commissioned him.” Axel explained simply, but that wasn’t true. That couldn’t have been true; Sora was much more than just another soul for capture. That was a lot more to this, he could feel it. He had to bite his tongue to keep from saying that. 

“This has nothing to do with you, Roxas. Stop thinking that everything’s about you, man.” 

Something deep in his chest stung at that, ached and closed around his throat, but he did his best to ignore it. No, not everything was about him, but this was. He knew it. 

He parted his lips to talk back, but Axel was already pulling the door open for him.

“Go home.” 

He stopped. The words in his throat died on his tongue and left him speechless as he stared at the doorway, past it into the next room with the glass and the bars, angled just so that he couldn’t see the captive from here. 

Suddenly, he knew what to do. He knew what had to happen next, and walked right out for it, in the opposite direction that Axel wanted him to go. He strode up to the glass and stopped in front of it, a few dozen feet away from the boy inside, sitting on a thin cot. At his approach, Sora glanced up to regard him, ocean blues in thin slits as a sign of hostility. That didn’t faze him. 

“Were you at the lake last November?” He asked, heart leaping.

“No.” 

“Are you sure?” He could feel his pulse loud on the ears. “The one under the Rothery Bridge?” 

“No, I’ve never been to that bridge. I’ve never been to a lake.” 

He wanted to call Sora out immediately, he wanted to shout that that wasn’t true, that they  _ had _ met there before, but he couldn’t. Somehow, he knew that Sora wasn’t lying. His breath came in shorter. 

“You swim in the sea.” He blurted out. “You live by the sea. Lived, lived by the sea.” 

Sora remained silent.

“Have we met before?” He barrelled on, stepping closer to the glass, his palm pressed to it. “Why do I know you?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen you before.”

“Really?” His heart was beating so fast, so hard that it punched him in the throat, pulsed on the roof of his mouth. He couldn’t breathe, lungs drawing in defective air, making him hyperventilate. 

It felt as if he stood on the edge of a clocktower looking down, down at something that twinkled halfway in between the top and the asphalt down below, hovering right in front of the clock, in midair. The answer to everything, all that he had ever wanted to know, so close yet out of reach, only obtainable if he took the plunge. He breathed, fingertips tingling, throat on the verge of blubbering out nonsense. He knew Sora; maybe not from the lake, but from somewhere else. His past life, maybe. They might’ve been friends, they might’ve been close, they might’ve been something else entirely. It’d explain the visions, the memories, the overwhelming feeling of familiarity toward him. His other palm touched the glass. 

“Did someone… Did you know someone…” 

He didn’t even know his old name. 

“I need to ask you something awful.” 

“No,  _ I _ need to ask you to shut the fuck up. I don’t  _ know _ you, dude. I’ve never seen you before, I’ve never been to this bridge, we didn’t meet at a lake; I’m not even from here. I literally don’t know who you are, and whether or not my parents live by the beach isn’t your fucking business.” Sora spoke while moving up from the cot, slowly crossing the cell toward him, hands balled in fists, a scowl on his face. “You’re with  _ them.” _ A hand stretched out to point at Axel and the sight of it sent him stumbling back a step. Right there, all around the wrist and up the forearm was a purple bruise exactly like the one that he had on  _ his _ arm, the same fingers, the exact same twisting of the flesh. He wanted to throw up. He couldn’t fucking breathe; his hands shook so hard that he had to grab them to keep them steady. 

Sora was talking but he couldn’t really hear him anymore. Weakly, he lifted up a finger to point at Sora’s wrist. 

“What’s that?” 

The words barely left his throat. 

Sora threw a careless glance at it, dropped his arm back down to hang loose at his side, and cocked his head in Axel’s direction, a sick half-grin on his face. 

“Your boyfriend did a real number on me last night and still has the audacity to call  _ me _ the savage.” 

No. Slowly, he turned to glance back at the redhead leaning a shoulder on the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest, jaw set and face perfectly unreadable, closed off to the entire world. Panic strangled his throat, made him choke on it, heart pounding hard enough to break through his ribs. 

“Is he violent in bed, too?”

Sora’s voice had his face whipping back to meet with the blues that mocked him, above a sly smirk that only grew wider with his shock, with his complete inability to piece anything together. He seemed to have been drowning in hints, the answer a plastic bag around his head, suffocating and dark, keeping him from linking it all together in time. 

“Not like this.” He answered, voice small, quiet and dying, blue eyes still wide, still glued on the fading smile that soon left Sora’s face. Just like that, the cockiness dropped, replaced by two arching brows and some color on the cheeks. The blues across the glass glanced between him and the redhead who stood out of view, a few paces behind him. 

“You’re actually together? I was just kidding.” 

A hand mindlessly clutched at his own arm, coiled over the wrist that burned now, that he couldn’t ignore, that pulsed and hurt under the sleeve of his jacket. Why did they have the exact same bruise? 

“Sora, what happened in April two years ago?” 

His question doubled the size of Sora’s eyes and instantly drained all color from his face. Similarly, it had Roxas’s heart pounding hard and fast against his ribs, his pulse jumping in his veins, breath caught in his throat. He was so close, he could feel it. This would be the answer to everything.

Sora’s lips parted to answer, but didn’t. Instead, he faltered, his face quickly converted back into disgust, into twisted anger, and the space between his brows creased into a scowl. The hands at his sides curled back into tight fists, shaking with the rage that took over him. 

Roxas didn’t understand what made Sora so upset, but it had to do with him. It was definitely about him.

Far behind from where he stood, seeming to come from the archway, sounds of footfalls quickly became clearer, accompanied by the shuffling of clothes and puffs of heavy breathing. He didn’t turn right away, still entranced by the premise of an answer, so close to the truth, to having Sora pull back the blinding veil from his eyes that he first watched the big ocean blues in front of him flick up to stare over his shoulder and be engulfed by complete horror. They watered immediately, Sora’s face twisting hard in pain, so real, so genuine that it brought him to tears himself. At Sora’s harrowing scream, loud and raw and from deep within, he finally turned around. 

Two guards stood just past the archway with a body in between them, seemingly unconscious, held up by the arms, head hanging down, face hidden behind long, silver hair, though he didn’t need to see it to know who this was. The one who loved him the most, who had saved him from himself, who kept him afloat every single day, who made life worth living. The one who he’d give his own life for. Tears flowed down his face, dripped from his jaw, drowned the room underwater. His heart ached so badly that he wanted to pull it out of his chest, a hand up over it, absently gripping the shirt that covered it. 

One of the guards opened his mouth to speak, but Sora’s screams deafened Roxas to anything that the man said. The two spoke with Axel, short and brief, and dragged the love of his life over, drops of blood trailing behind him. In nothing but a tank top and briefs, his wounds were openly visible, a few slashes on the arms, bruises on the shoulders, blood stains soaking through his shirt, a huge red mark on the leg. They brought him to the steel bars and Sora followed from the other side, sobbing through the weakening screams, his face a mess of tear tracks old and new. A guard opened the cell to throw the boy in, but Sora grabbed onto him the moment he could, both arms closed tight around the torso, nose buried on the crook of his neck. The guards let go, closed the cell back shut, and left with only a careless nod at the redhead as Sora slowly slid to the floor, clutching the bloody body to his own, giving into the weight of it. 

This was Sora’s boyfriend, not his. 

“You love him.” He blurted out, voice small, barely audible under the sound of Sora’s grief. “You’re in love with him.”

His heart skipped a beat. It was all Sora, it had all been Sora; holding hands at the park, celebrating his birthday at the club, being under his boyfriend’s wing, breaking into the community pool, going to college, being at the hospital, living in a dorm. Sora had lived through all of that, and, somehow, Roxas knew about it. Somehow, the memories in his head, Sora’s memories in his head, had seeped in through his ears when he had fallen into the lake. 

It didn’t make sense. 

“Who are you?” He whispered, quiet behind the glass, mostly to himself as the brunette weeped on the ground, unable to hear him. 

“Roxas.” Axel’s voice pierced through his brain like a needle. “If you’re going to keep disobeying me, you know what happens next.” 

His heart raced. Slowly, he turned to face the redhead standing by the exit archway, green eyes cold on his face, distant and impassive. The fear that that brought him closed tight around his throat, had him breaking inertia to finally comply with Axel’s orders and walk over to him, a small figure under his height. Together, they left the cells and crossed the hallway back to the lobby with its two white chairs and a rug. 

He thought that that had been it. In his head, Axel would part from him here, and he’d have to start over in order to speak with Sora again, to finally learn the truth, but his boss didn’t stop here for farewells. In fact, Axel didn’t stop here at all, crossed the room and took the stairs leading up instead. Without a word, Roxas simply followed. He hadn’t been officially dismissed yet.

The second floor brought him much of the same as the first one, all white walls with a number of doors and archways, but a lot less furniture this time around, only pictures hanging as high as his head and tall potted plants by the corners. Axel navigated through a few rooms, passed by a wide one with a big window across an entire wall, entered an archway, followed a corridor, stopped and opened a door for him. The room inside was dark, the sun outside completely gone by now, and he didn’t go in. For the first time in his life, he was scared to enter the dark with his friend. 

Axel reached over, flicked on a light switch, and walked in ahead. This was only a bedroom; a wardrobe on the left, a bed on the furthermost wall, an armchair somewhere in between and a closed door on the right. With his face burning at his own idiocy, he stepped in and shut the door. 

“I’m sorry.” He blurted out, heart squeezing tight in his chest. “I’m so sorry.”

Standing with his back to him, Axel shook his head, said nothing. He pulled open the wardrobe doors and slipped his coat off, placed it around a hanger. Roxas could feel his heart stuck way up in his throat. In the quiet dimness of the room, away from all of the noise, from his own turbulent thoughts, from the fastness of his own pulse, deafening to reason as if driving him insane, out of his mind and into a completely different realm where his thoughts weren’t his own and his body moved by itself, completely hijacked by a sort of ghostly entity, in here he could think. Away from it all, with only Axel in the room, unobserved, he could act like himself, think for himself again, and he regretted a lot that had just happened. He regretted the way that he had spoken to his best friend, ignored his concern, ignored his warnings. He was lucky that Axel hadn’t reported him on the spot or forced him out of the warehouse by any means necessary. He was lucky that Axel liked him enough to let him use that as a shield.

“Axel, I’m sorry.” His voice trembled. “I really am.”

Turning away from the wardrobe, doors shut in place, Axel walked over to him, a small crease on his forehead, tension holding his shoulders, but he didn’t look as angry as he had been downstairs. He came over in two strides, an accusatory finger pointed at Roxas, except it wasn’t enough to make him scared, or even flinch. Staring up into Axel’s face, he wasn’t afraid. He had remembered now that this was his best friend, the only one who would’ve never hurt him, the only one who could’ve stomped around and been angry all he wanted and still have never laid a finger on him. He wasn’t afraid; he trusted Axel completely. He was Axel’s number one priority, after all, for as long as they lived.

“You’re not supposed to be here, Roxas. You broke so many regulations coming here that I don’t even know what to do with you right now. You disobeyed Saix, you disobeyed me, you definitely lied to get here, you left the building without authorization, you interacted with the outside world, you possess prohibited knowledge of internal affairs, you’re trespassing into our facility. Roxas, this is more than enough to retire you from the organization for good. Insubordination is fucking serious and don’t you dare give me that look, it’s not going to save you this time. I can’t do anything for you right now.” 

“What look?”

“The puppy look with the pout on. I can’t help you.” 

Axel sat down on the bed, a slouch on his back and a deep sigh leaving his lungs. Running a hand through his hair, he looked exhausted. Roxas could feel his own face burn. 

“I’m sorry, I just, downstairs when I saw Sora, I don’t know, something inside of me just took over. I didn’t mean to be such an idiot, I just felt like, like I was so close. Like he had something that I needed, something that’d help me understand who I am. I don’t know. I…” His heart went for his throat; he had to say it. “I have his memories in my head, Axel. I know what he’s been through and what he feels in his heart. This sounds stupid, yeah, but I promise you it’s true. It’s true. I need to know who he is.”

“You still haven’t figured it out?”

That offhand question made his eyes grow so big that he could feel their size on his face. 

“What?” He nearly whispered, then found his voice again. “What is it? What do you know?”

Axel reached a hand to him, his head motioning to the empty space on the bed with a nod. If taking a seat next to his best friend was all it took to unlock the truth, then Axel didn’t even have to ask; he promptly took the hand offered to him and sat down on the mattress, close enough so their thighs would touch, his knee nearly on Axel’s lap. He could barely breathe. 

“Did Saix ever tell you about soul marks?” Axel asked, voice smooth, green eyes softer now, watching him in the same careful way that they used to when he caught them staring in the car, in the middle of a movie, across from the dinner table. It had his blood running warmer and his breathing finally drafting in, heart slowing down, a certainty blooming inside. This was the Axel that he knew. This was his best friend. 

Still, he squinted at the question. Answers didn’t usually come with a rhetoric. 

“Sure.” 

The hand in his own tugged it closer, a thumb swiped over the back of it. As far as he knew, as Saix had told him, soul marks didn’t work the way that humans thought they did. Like folklore, they had no proof, no evidence within the human world. Society couldn’t prove their existence and scientists couldn’t prove their inexistence; people simply found similar stains on each other and called them soul marks, fated themselves to an eternity of true love and happiness tied together, did the most to find any purpose, to find the first hint of reason within the lonely nebula that was human existence. Soulmates cosmically tied, fatefully bonded to one another; all cheap movie plots and bedtime stories for children, Saix had said. As a reaper, he had found the whole ordeal hilarious. No two souls could ever have been destined to spend eternity together, because fate didn’t exist. Soul marks meant something else entirely, vastly individual, that would never have anything to do with other people. Soul marks were the blooming bruises of the soul that seeped out onto the skin, signifying decay and rot, always. They could never have been good, society only lived to romanticize. 

Roxas had never stopped to think about soul marks long enough to form a controversial opinion on them, inclined to believe the words and thoughts of a reaper on the subject that they knew best. He didn’t understand where Axel’s question fit into any of this, and, as if summoned, Axel brought his hand closer to pull the jacket sleeve back and reveal the disgusting bruises that colored his arm. It was such a surprising, unexpected move that he broke free from Axel’s grasp as quickly as if it had burned him and covered his forearm back up to the wrist. 

“This isn’t a soul mark.” He spoke fast, defensive, eyes wide. 

“How are you so sure?”

“Soul marks aren’t real.”

“Then explain the bruise on your arm.” 

“It’s…” The words escaped him, he drew a huge blank. 

He couldn’t do it.

“If soulmates aren’t real, Roxas, then explain why, when I grabbed Sora’s arm, you developed the exact same bruise on yours.” 

“I never said they’re not real, and, and that’s not how soul marks are supposed to work. They’re not supposed to appear on you later on, they’re supposed to have been there since birth. That’s what the humans say.” 

“How can soulmates be real if soul marks aren’t?” 

“I don’t know, Axel, and it doesn’t matter, because only humans can have them. Only humans have hearts.” 

“Well, if you don’t like this theory, then you’ll hate the other one.” 

“What’s that?” 

Axel shook his head and glanced off to the side, falling in thought, his eyes on the room but not really seeing it. He ran a hand through his hair, red brows creasing in pensiveness. 

“Did I ever tell you about your soul? How we captured you?” 

He shook his head. 

“You know, souls don’t usually separate from their hearts. They stay together even in death, if the heart that holds it is strong. If it isn’t, well, that’s where we come in. When the heart weakens and starts to wane, the soul it holds starts to detach, but not all at once; little by little. It begins with a disease and progresses with it. What happens to the heart happens to the soul; a heart tainted by disease will have a corresponding soul, cut up and tarnished just like it. What we do is, when the soul detaches itself completely, we take it and put it in a warm vessel that will heal it back to life, to as much health as it’ll hold, to have it grow back as much as possible. We’re all broken pieces and missing links, except for you.”

His brows raised, heart hammering through his ribs. 

“Somehow, your soul was completely whole when we found it. Usually, reapers see all of the waning hearts in line to finally lose their souls, but Saix told me that yours wasn’t there from the start. Yours just suddenly appeared, out of thin air, as if a switch had flicked off the heart that held it, and your soul was adrift for a second. One second, enough time for him to scoop you up and place you in the husk. He said you were so strong and held so much life that he couldn’t hold all of you, that you seeped through his fingers when he secured you in the husk, like sand falling from his hand.” 

Two green eyes found his face and made his heart jump up to his throat. 

“Lost souls are always small and sick, Roxas, but yours wasn’t. You were always big and strong. I had no idea what had happened to you until I met Sora. Then, it all kind of… Clicked. That’s why I didn’t want you here.” 

“What do you mean? What clicked?” 

“You and him. He didn’t tell you what happened two years ago, when we captured you. You asked him, but he didn’t tell you.” 

A loud buzz cut through their conversation and had Axel reaching into his pocket to fish out his phone, topic dead, dialogue killed, the truth forever elusive. On the screen was the picture of a man that Roxas had never seen before, with part of his hair draped over one eye and what looked like a cravat up to his neck. The name underneath it read Zexion, and, recalling a couple of emails from last night, he had an idea about who this was, some kind of infiltrated doctor working for the organization. Where the death of a subject involved the soul of a captive, nothing worth of a phone call from the hospital could’ve been good news, not when he wanted Sora to live. 

“Zexion, what is it?” 

Axel got up from the bed to answer, a sort of alertness on his face now, on the crease of his brow and the tension of his back. 

Roxas kept quiet, ears perked, though it was impossible to hear the voice on the other end. 

“Are you sure? Because when I get the whole crew assembled and the merchandise past the gate, there’s no turning back, man. This has to be it.” 

Silence. One, two, Roxas counted the beating of his own heart on the roof of his mouth. This couldn’t have been it, not tonight; he needed more time. 

Axel walked to the door, opened it, and turned back to face him. He lifted a finger in silence, the look on his greens demanding enough to get the message across, that Roxas stay put and make no noise. He showed no signs of acknowledgement to that, not a nod or any sort of understanding motion, but Axel didn’t need it, already halfway assuming that every one of his orders would automatically have been followed. In his defense, that had been true during all of Roxas’ life up until tonight. Speechless, he watched Axel leave the room and shut the door behind himself. 

One, two, and Roxas leapt from the bed, the side of his face quickly going for the door, one ear pressed to the hardwood of it, listening. An echo, the rumbling of Axel’s low voice reverberating through the empty hallway, but no intelligible words forming in his brain, the thickness of the door censoring all means of understanding. At that, he pulled the door open a sliver, the enough to fit his ear in the crack, and listened. Axel was decently far away by now, but he still caught enough worrying words to have his pulse racing and his eyes widening. “Tonight” was the worst of them, tonight couldn’t have been it. He didn’t have a plan, or any explanations, or even where to go from here, but he knew that Sora couldn’t stay locked up for a second longer. He needed more time. 

Slipping his head through the crack, he saw Axel at the far end of the hallway now, walking, still on the phone, the reverberations of his voice low and distant, completely incoherent from way over there. He took a right and disappeared amidst the milky white of the walls. That was when Roxas bolted from the room and ran all the way downstairs. 

“Sora!” He shouted, panting and breathless, approaching the cell like a derailed freight train, only coming to a hard stop when both of his hands found the glass, the rest of his body trying to meet with it. Wide-eyed, he watched the brunette on the other side turn to look at him, the same sort of unfriendliness still on the crease of his brow, this time mixed in with annoyance. 

Sora’s boyfriend was sitting up now, slumped against the furthermost wall of the cell, blood on his shirt and sweat on his face. The boscage-like greenish blue of his eyes pierced through the silver streaks of hair that stuck to his forehead and cut Roxas right through the chest with a single glance, knocking all wind out of him with the flooding of memories, old and new, countless and suffocating. His best friend since he knew himself as a person, his first kiss at the park, his lifelong companion at the club, the birthday boy who loved mojitos, the one who had pushed him against the bathroom stall and showed him how to climb over the community pool gate, his savior at the hospital, the love of his life, and his savior in here, too. No, Sora’s savior. Sora’s boyfriend. He stepped away from the glass, his heart trying to break through his ribs, the world upside-down and tilting sideways. None of that had happened to him. He didn’t know this guy at all. 

“What do you want?” 

Sora’s voice sounded distant through the stuffiness of his ears and the wet sponge in his brain, but it was enough of a small echo to grab hold of him, even if a slippery one, and begin to fish him out. His eyes moved to stare at the brunette who had addressed him, though he couldn’t really see him, not fully conscious yet, still somehow lost in the memories that didn’t belong to him; the hospital bed, the IV drops, the pain. The overwhelming pain, and Riku, the was his name. Riku had been there, of course he had. Of course he had. Riku had brought him there. 

“Roxas?” 

He blinked, the hospital was gone, and a wall of thick tempered glass stood between him and the two people who weren’t him, who had never been in his life before tonight, who didn’t know who he was and had never lived through anything with him. He took another step back, his hands leaving the glass to hang loose at his sides. He breathed in deep, and remembered why he was here. His heart skipped a beat. 

“Sora, I need to get you out of here. Both of you. The reaping is tonight.” 

“The reaping?” 

There was no feasible way that he could break through this glass, not even with human help or any kind of accessible weapon, so he’d have to get through the bars somehow. Steel. He could scour around the place for a blowtorch, but the chances of this warehouse having one in a clearly visible and reachable spot were slim to none. Still, they probably had one at all, which was what really mattered, despite what he’d have to do to find it. He hadn’t checked the basement yet, which would’ve been where he would’ve kept a blowtorch if he had ever had one, and he held onto that idea with all of his sanity, one step away from losing all hope, one bad decision away from absolute despair. Hopefully, he’d find it fast enough, and that was what he clung to. Hope. Turning around, he promptly started off for the archway, but, before he fully crossed the room, a familiar voice struck through him like lightning and made him stop midstep, heart racing, blood pumped into ice in his veins, frozen. 

“The infirmary.” 

He couldn’t move; the white of the walls had monitors on them, his arm had a needle under the skin. The infirmary. 

“There’s a big guy at the infirmary.” Riku continued, voice weak, almost a croak. He couldn’t breathe. “Huge dude, ginger, fucked up beyond repair. I’m assuming you can’t open the cell by yourself, or you would’ve already.”

He didn’t reply, the beeping of the machines growing loud in his brain, the hustle and bustle of a busy hospital clouding his ears. Riku was right. He wasn’t even supposed to have been admitted.

“He can.” Riku continued, barely a whisper. “Get him in here.” 

A man at the infirmary. A ginger, not a blonde, not him. Not him. The needle in his arm dissipated onto his skin and the beeping stopped. Breaking through the icicles that hung in the air, he turned, his eyes quickly finding Riku’s, light and bright amid the dirt and the grime that darkened his face. 

“What will you do to him?” 

“Nothing. We only need him to open the cell. We’ll play dead if we have to.” 

“He’s going to hurt you.” 

“No, he won’t.” Sora interrupted, tone loud and confident, the tear tracks on his face far drier now. “I won’t let him.” 

No, that wasn’t right; Sora could’ve never faced a member of the organization and lived, despite how badly injured they were to have been sent to the infirmary in the first place. Sora, easily over a foot shorter than the most average member, malnourished and weak, could’ve absolutely never engaged a six-foot-something man with CQC training in his past and weapons on his belt. Never, not even if he were a master of martial arts. Roxas walked back to the cell, this time stopping by the bars instead of the glass. He pulled his jacket open to flash the knife carefully secured at his side, and Sora’s eyes doubled when he saw it. Roxas didn’t even have to call him over. 

“If he’s going to open the cell, then you need to be ready.” He whispered, voice trembling, hands threatening to do the same. The camera hanging from the top corner of the room could only record their profile. “You  _ need _ to get the jump on him.” 

The two bright ocean blues behind the bars shone, absolutely transfixed on his belt. Sora reached a tentative hand toward him, through the gap between the bars, only then glancing up to study his face, his reaction to the approach. In silence, he nodded, and the brunette reached across the bars to unsheathe the knife. It glinted under the harsh white lights as Sora turned it a bit, as if inspecting it for a second before pressing the tip to his side, the blade against the fabric of his shirt. He felt the pressure that came before a slash and glanced up. 

Two sets of blues met, face to face, at exactly the same level. He squinted, one movement away from betrayal, one wrong flick of the wrist away from changing his mind completely and allowing the harvest to happen. With jaw set, he squared off his shoulders, challenging Sora, almost wanting him to do it just to have a reason not to go through with this, a reason to stop blatantly disobeying orders and finally understand fair judgement. He breathed in, his brows creased, and the knife at his side pulled away. He exhaled. Sora dropped his eyes and slipped his arm back through the bars, knife hidden in a hand, then rolled up in the hem of his shirt, always concealed from the camera. 

“Don’t let him see you attack, Sora. Don’t be an idiot; do it first.” 

Sora nodded. 

Out in the lobby, the commotion from upstairs seemed a lot louder, much easier to hear from here, all loud footsteps and muffled voices with an edge of urgency to them, not quite shouting, but close. It made him walk faster and avoid the upper floors, taking the stairs down instead, just because the infirmary could’ve been anywhere, and he hadn’t really seen any room that resembled one during the tour with Axel. Oh, fuck, Axel; oh, God, he was going to be in so much trouble for this. So much fucking trouble for this; he didn’t know what Axel was going to do with him this time, or to him, and really didn’t want to find out. No, he didn’t want to think about it, or hypothesize about it, because it wouldn’t happen. Nothing bad could happen if he simply left the warehouse and ran, never to be caught, never to be found. He reached the basement and ran aimlessly across it, eyes skimming over closed doors and an incredible expanse of white, lost deep in the maze before he could find himself at the infirmary. 

In the sea of closed doors, one was left ajar. He pushed it open to see a row of hospital beds pushed against the wall, all empty except for one, a single lamp on to light the only patient in here. The ginger laid with eyes closed, patches and gauze peppering his body, visible where the thin hospital clothes couldn’t reach, shoulders almost too broad to fit on the cot and a white blanket over his legs. Roxas approached quietly, or what he considered to have been quietly, because two steps in made a pair of eyes shoot open to stare at him and seize his breathing in a gasp, heart speeding, the rest of him paralyzed. His hands went cold. 

“Roxas.” The man uttered past chapped lips, relaxing on the cot again. 

That calmed him down, too, and had his shoulders loosening up, a breath leaving his lungs. He sighed, absently wondering how everyone in the organization seemed to know his name when he felt like he didn’t know a single person who had ever talked to him once. He saw them everyday, went on missions everyday, lived in the exact same building as all of them and yet still felt completely alone. Maybe he was just horribly bad at paying attention to anyone that wasn’t Axel. 

Oh, fuck, Axel. 

“What do you need?” The ginger’s voice rescued his attention from deep within his screaming mind for an acceptable answer, something that had to sound reasonable and fully understandable, something good enough to get this man out of his well-deserved recovery and all the way over to the cells. 

He remembered what Riku had said. 

“I think one of the captives is dead.” 

Just like that, the body on the cot stiffened, eyes wide, nearly crazed. 

“Which one? Where’s Axel?” 

“I don’t know, I can’t find him. I can’t find anyone. There was a phone call and they all disappeared; I don’t know what to do.” 

The man moved up to a sitting position, showing little to no signs of pain at that, despite all of the bandages that covered him. Very resilient; he wondered how Riku knew that this guy would’ve been here, and in increasingly poor shape, too. This man’s wounds with Riku’s started to connect some dots and slowly form a picture that he couldn’t really see to the end, too hazy yet, too blurry in the thick fog of his brain, but something told him that Riku wasn’t what the memories had made him believe.

“Which one is dead?” 

“I don’t know if he’s dead, he’s just laying there, hasn’t moved in a long time.” 

The man got up with a grunt and left the infirmary. Bingo. 

“Roxas, which one?” 

“The brunette.”

He followed the ginger through the basement, through all of its maze-like rooms and connecting hallways up the stairway into the lobby, which, in comparison, was very easy to mentally map out. He knew the way to the front door from anywhere in this first floor, he felt, while further down was a disgrace, and up was currently far too dangerous to meander about. They crossed the hallway, entered the first room, and he suddenly remembered that those two didn’t know what to expect. Sora had a fucking knife under his shirt; the possibilities of this going absurdly wrong were endless, so he had to fix it fast. 

“I’m pretty sure they’re both dead.” He stated loudly, nearing a shout, loud enough that he knew he could’ve been heard from the next room over, while the floor above remained oblivious to it. 

The enormous man walking quickly ahead of him said nothing to that, only continued forward, crossing this first room and moving fast into the next, rushing to the bars with something of a light limp on his left leg. Roxas stepped away from him, off to the side, where his vision was unobstructed and could now see the two slumped bodies in the corner playing pretend. The sight brought a deep, relieved sigh from his lungs; the knife was perfectly hidden. With both shoulders down in repose, he watched the man curse, try to call out to the prisoners, fail, and proceed to open the cell door with the palm of his hand and a following code. Roxas memorized the five-digit code just in case. The limping man approached the pretend corpses. 

From where he stood, Roxas couldn’t exactly see all that passed within the few quick seconds that upgraded those two regular humans from good people to murderers, but the ginger approached, bent down, gurgled and never got up. It was Sora who pushed the body away to fall on its side instead of on top of them, but it was Riku who had been bathed in blood with a knife in his hand. Roxas couldn’t really move. Sora got up on both feet, helped his boyfriend to stand, took the knife from him and walked out ahead, straight over to where Roxas stood, kind of paralyzed. He had never seen this much blood before. Whenever Axel did it, the cuts were clean and precise, and the victims bled, but nothing like this. Never as much as this. They must’ve slashed the neck open, something an assassin would’ve never done. Out there in the world, this kind of sloppy recklessness was what got Nobodies caught and killed, Axel had told him. The less traces back to them the better, and a pool of blood would never have been it, despite how black their clothes were; there was only so much red they could soak up in the darkness. 

He blinked, and the knife was pointed at him, two huge blues staring him down, terrified beyond belief but putting on a brave act to come and face him. From a simple look, he knew that Sora was absurdly close to trembling from head to toe, the knife in his hand nearly shaking. Behind him, Riku limped out of the cell, one arm across his stomach and the other stretched out to lean onto the walls for support. Even though his own knife was literally covered in blood and pushed against the fabric of his shirt, Roxas wasn’t scared. He knew that Sora wasn’t actually going to hurt him, more afraid of the possibility of failure during the escape than interested in partaking in acts of personal vengeance. Maybe, if Sora had more time and were safely away from this place, he would’ve driven that knife deep into Roxas’ stomach, but today would’ve never been that day. The knife poked him over the shirt, harmless. 

“Look, Roxas, I don’t know what your angle is, but we’re leaving. We are walking out the door and we’re leaving, do you understand?” Sora’s voice quivered as he spoke. 

“I know, I’m coming with you.” 

The pressure at his stomach lessened; Sora cocked his head aside. 

“What?” 

“Good, show us to the exit.” Riku croaked from the sidelines, leaning a hand on the glass as he approached. 

It took Sora all of one second to accept this new turn of events, leave Roxas’ side and go help his boyfriend stand, an arm across Riku’s back and a good portion of his weight on both legs. As expected, he had no real inclinations of hurting anyone; Roxas wasn’t worried about him. The one who absolutely horrified him dripped of fresh blood and limped from an injured leg, the eyes that watched him partially covered by silver hair and a different kind of blue. 

“Roxas.” 

Riku’s voice turned his veins into ice, but he complied anyway, walking over to the couple and swinging an arm under Riku’s free one to take up his empty side. It terrified him to be this close to the guy, but if they ever wanted to escape with their lives, then they’d have to do something about this limp, and practically carrying the dude out was their best option here. At a nod from Sora, they both lifted him off the ground and dragged him out, smears of blood on the walls and a trail coloring the floors red as they navigated through an infinity of white. They’d have to be quick about this, because literally anyone could follow. He understood why Axel never went for the neck. 


	5. The cost of knowledge

Out on the street, they all hurried along the sidewalk together, never stopping or looking back. They took the very first right in sight for the immediate cover that the corner provided, ran up the block and crossed for the left, a small puzzle that, a few blocks down the road, had him barely breathing from the exertion already. Riku was a heavy man, despite his relatively small frame and slim figure; nowhere near comparable to the organization members that inhabited that warehouse, but, still, a couple of inches taller than the two that carried him, and a substantial amount of pounds heavier, muscles considered. Roxas’ shoulder screamed, and his legs burned something awful the further they scrambled along, three bodies bumping awkwardly against one another with each uncoordinated step, huffing and puffing to keep on going. His throat hurt, passing cars blinded him, and the noises that surrounded them seemed to only grow louder block after block. He was sweating. 

The gradual shift in atmosphere told him that they had been thoughtlessly inching their way downtown, the hustle and bustle of opening businesses and lavishly dressed humans beginning to fill up the streets as a dead giveaway. Here and at this hour, the nightlife took no more than another block to fully engulf them in its bright lights and speeding cars, screeching tires and shrieking laughter. Women in fur coats and sparkling dresses passed them by on both sides, their heels slapping the sidewalk, their jewelry clinking together, and men followed close behind, roaring at their own loud jokes, imported coats over their shoulders and lit cigarettes hanging from their fingers. The neon lights made him squint, the people that accidentally bumped into them gave him strange looks, and every single man in a dark jacket made him quicken his step, every single Mercedes winded him like a sucker punch to the stomach. His heart hammered hard against his ribs, head promptly whipping around at each new noise, each louder screech, his eyes frantically searching for what he couldn’t see, debilitatingly terrified. They could’ve been anywhere, in the moving shadows, in the dark alleyways, in the passing cars, only he was too blind to spot them. The organization.

Off to their right, a bus slowed down and stopped. Sora had motioned for it. As soon as the doors opened, they got on. 

“Roxas, give me your backpack.” Sora spoke through rattling teeth, hugging himself with both arms, sitting across the gap from him, barefeet dark on the ground. Riku had the window seat.

He unzipped his bag and pulled out the very first pieces of soft fabric that he could find, a dark blue flannel, some pants, a pair of socks. It all fit Sora perfectly, almost as if they had been tailored for him and not bought sporadically at every other store that he had visited in between missions. He dug in for a towel and asked Sora to pass it to his boyfriend, so maybe he’d look less like he had just committed a murder and more like he had only fallen a few sets of stairs. Unfortunately, for Riku, he could only find a dark gray sweater and some basketball shorts that would actually fit him, plus some fuzzy socks that would definitely have been thrown in the trash after this. There was no feasible way that they could’ve ever survived the harsh city streets on their own. 

“This line takes us through Radiant Garden.” Sora mumbled in pensiveness, a small crease in his brow as he scrutinized the colorful map bolted to the side of the bus, eyes glued on the intersecting lines. “We should drop off at May Point and go to Destiny.” 

“Destiny?” 

Something about the name sounded familiar.

“Yeah, it’s this club that our friend works at. Her family owns it, so we get in for free.” 

“Oh, no, don’t go there. Don’t go there. We know about that place, I just, I forgot the name. Do somewhere else.” 

“Well, we can’t go home.” 

“We should get off at the metro station. The buses and trains can take us anywhere.” Riku suggested. 

“The Radiant Garden Station, yeah?” 

“Yeah. It’s so big, we could even go to the beach from there, if we wanted to.” A careless shrug, and then a pause. Riku turned to face his boyfriend. “Hey, remember the beach house from last summer? The one in Portsfield that my parents love. We could stay there for a while.”

“The metro can’t take us to Portsfield.” Sora commented. 

“No, but it’ll take us to the edge of town where we can take a bus that’ll drop us off two blocks from the beach house.” 

“Aren’t intercities expensive?” 

“Not this one.” 

Sora hummed. 

The crowd of people that moved past him obstructed his vision with dark hair and gray coats, black backpacks and dark blue gloves, brown beanies and brightly colored scarves. They moved like a coordinated organism, a bloodstream that flowed up and down, moving cells that travelled through dark tunnels and never stopped. The metro, as expected, was full, with people rushing from one platform to the other, from one carriage to another, from the inside to the outside, focused and fast. Riku and Sora both merged with the system seamlessly, with forethought about where to go and what to do and when to turn and when to leave, while Roxas tagged three heads behind, carrying his bag over his chest and ignoring the buzzing of his phone that shook his leg. His eyes were focused onto the only two hair styles that he knew, holding his breath as not to lose them, because they were his only lifeline. They were his entire life right now, and if he lost them, he’d lose himself. He let Sora keep his wallet for the various tickets that they’d need between this town and the next and only worried about tagging along, not saying a word, not interacting with the humans that swallowed him into the crowd.

In the train, the atmosphere was different; the frantic hurrying about was gone, the great amount of people in his immediate personal space was gone, and he could breathe in the cold again, enjoy the relative silence, take a seat at the very end of the cabin, once again close to the only two men who knew him at all, Sora at his right and Riku directly across. Placing his bag down by his feet, he took out his phone, still buzzing, still trying to reach him for what must’ve been at least twenty minutes by now. He fished it out of a pocket, and the name on the screen paralyzed him with two big eyes and defective lungs. 

Axel. 

Mortified, he watched the call go to voicemail. It had been the fifth since the escape. He couldn’t breathe. 

Sora snatched the phone from his hand, shocking him with the brief touch, inadvertently making him pull away and let the phone go. It buzzed in Sora’s hand, of course, the sixth call in a row, and he was in so much trouble. He was absolutely done for, Axel was going to kill him. The organization was going to hunt him down and there was  _ no way _ that Axel could’ve stopped them, that he could’ve ever forgiven him this time, that he wasn’t calling to say that he was already a dead man. Mission completely jeopardized, target freed and client lost, he was totally fucked. He was fully and entirely fucked. Sora swiped right and put the phone to his ear. “Fuck you” was all he said before hanging up. 

“He’s going to kill me.” 

His voice barely sounded like it had come from this realm.

“No, he won’t.” Sora reassured, getting up from his seat, a free hand quick to hold onto the various rails for support. “You’re safe with us.” 

At the next stop, Sora threw the phone into the gap between the train and the platform. In an uncanny, almost zen-like out of body experience, where he watched himself drive off inside the wagon that crushed his phone into smithereens, he found that he didn’t mind that. It was better this way; he didn’t need Axel to tell him what he already knew. 

Axel. Despite the fear that washed his veins, a strange sort of poignant heaviness began to settle into his chest and decided to skip town with him. He didn’t oust it. 

Two metro rides and a bus later, he saw the ocean, an expanse of infinite black blurring with the sky and reflecting back the moon. The waves rushed from the very back and came crashing violently onto the shore, engulfing it in its ink, eating the sand with a dangerous appetite. It was terrifying; the ocean would’ve had a much easier time swallowing him whole than any lake ever would. Had he fallen in here instead, he didn’t think that Axel would’ve been able to have saved him then. 

Axel. The heaviness from before pulled his shoulders down, made it hard to breathe, scrambled his eyes and drove him dizzy, but he pushed on anyway, breathing fast while following Sora into a big, tall, two-story beach house. He tried focusing on that instead, the house, and not on the haunting memories of the only one who truly knew him or his inevitable fate at the hands of his best friend; he concentrated on this house, on the huge structure right ahead that stood only a handful of feet from the galloping ocean, mounted onto the sand, running along the shore. He had never been to a beach house before, had never seen the ocean either, but the memories had made him believe in something a lot nicer about it, almost lovely, that pushed him to doubt everything that they had ever showed him. Out here, looking deep into the blackness, at the violent waves that crashed onto the shore and raked through the sand, he was taught that the ocean was actually a nightmare. Unable to trust his own mind or rely on rescue, he walked in through the front door. 

With the lights off, the inside of the house was very dark, with only small portions of the furniture lit up by the moonlight that filtered in through the tall windows and the wide glass doors that adorned the walls, opening the room to the anger of the ocean, vulnerable from so much visibility and much darker at the corners. The sight immediately entranced Roxas as he stepped in, the waves abyssal and vicious just out the back door, in plain sight behind the clear glass. The ocean advanced, crashed and screamed, but the house was in complete silence, disquieting his inner core, making him absently hug himself. 

A noise and the lights were on, reflecting the three of them back to him onto the glass doors, obfuscating the sea with their image right onto the black of the water, his body directly over the crashing waves. The chandelier above felt the front door draft, its crystals moving, a cascade of golden light swaying on the walls, dancing with their shadows. Riku locked the front door, limping still, passing by Sora who hadn’t moved since their arrival, the paralysis of a statue with both eyes fixed onto the back of his head, wide and blue, bright blue still despite superimposed on complete darkness. That made him turn around to stare back. 

“Are we safe in here?” 

No, he wanted to promptly vomit out, not with the ocean right there, right behind him, coming up to crash through the glass and drag him into the depths, but that hadn’t been Sora’s question. No, the knot in his throat told him as well, not while he stuck to these two, not while Axel searched tirelessly for him, all day and all night, going through every single connection that these two had ever had, every single record with their name on, every single move that they had ever made, until, eventually and inexorably, one footprint, one signature, one missed bill connected all of the necessary dots and created a straight line to the lot of them, mapped out right in front of the organization’s masterful assassin. Axel was going to find them. Axel was going to find  _ him; _ the other two would’ve only been tangential casualties if they kept him around. No, he wanted to say anyway, not with the entire organization on high alert looking for all of them; one wrong move, one slight mistake, and they would’ve been traced, captured, worse. No, they couldn’t stay here for long, even though, no matter where they went or what they did, deep inside, he knew that true escape didn’t exist, not for them. Staying on the move constantly was a sure way of buying time on a ticking bomb, but, at some point, no matter what, it was going to explode. Their fates had been set. 

“We’re safe for tonight” was the only half-certainty that he could give Sora right now. 

“For tonight?” Sora’s brows twitched. “What about tomorrow?” 

“We’ll think of tomorrow when it comes.” Riku interrupted, slowly making his way across the foyer, limping in between the two. “For now, let’s just rest. If they catch us in our sleep, at least we’ll coalesce into dreams.” 

“How are you okay with that?” Sora snapped, fear widening his eyes and shaking his hands. “After everything, you’ll just let them get you?” 

“Roxas will stand guard down here. If he warns me of danger, I’ll know to trust him.” 

Sora’s brows creased something awful, jaw set, unhappy and not fully sold on that idea, but speechless to a comeback, probably out of better ideas himself. He threw one glance at Roxas, stern but fearful, before wrapping an arm across his boyfriend’s back to help him to the stairs. 

“Don’t switch sides again, Roxas.” Sora’s voice echoed from the bottom of the stairs, past the archway shrouded in darkness. “Don’t make me regret you.” 

His chest ached at that, weirdly, a wave of melancholy crashing onto him in a way that he couldn’t explain, an unnatural seizing of the heart that he had never experienced before. He turned from the archway and walked further into the foyer, a hand over his chest, wishing he could’ve told Axel about it, that Axel would’ve been here without life threatening connotations, that a firm hug and soothing words could’ve quelled the soreness in his chest and the doubts in his head. He didn’t want to do this, suddenly. Not anymore. He wanted to go back, to redeem himself, to apologize to Axel down on both knees and atone for this entire night. For everything, really, everything, but that wasn’t an option anymore. Axel had warned him before, and he had known the full consequences the entire time, but still his judgement had been calamitous. There was no way out. He had willingly trapped himself into a corner and forced Axel’s hand to slice his insides open. Briefly, he wondered if Xion had done the same. If that, too, had been her demise. 

He turned the lights off. 

Through the glass, and once again visible, the ocean writhed, violently crashing onto the shore, advancing further and further on land, close enough to walk right to it, to feel the dreadful cold once again, freezing his fingertips and wrapping around his legs, staggering him forward, one unbridled pull away from swallowing him whole, from welcoming him to the familiar depths, this time to stay. With a hand on the knob, he tried the door, eyes entranced by the shiny darkness just ahead, mind screaming for escape. Locked. His hand dropped. 

He opened his eyes, heart skipping a beat, something nestled awkwardly into his chest. He breathed, and the ceiling looked back at him, gray, tall, from a great distance. Dull without the lights on, the entire foyer dreary in the dark. With the palm of a hand, he felt the shirt over his missing heart that pulsed and beat, and, in the corner of his eye, a shadow moved. He twisted around to look at it, immediately, his two blues wide, breathing ceased. In the dark, Sora watched him, standing silently by the archway. He exhaled. 

He didn’t remember to have fallen asleep on this couch. 

“Sora, don’t do that.” Voice quiet, tired, failing to admonish. He moved to a sitting position, a hand dragging over his face. He felt like absolute shit. 

Silence, so he glanced back over at Sora and watched him come closer from across the room, slowly, his steps small, almost apprehensive, almost turning right back around and bolting for the stairs again. He squinted. 

“I can’t sleep.” Sora confessed, his voice like a whisper. “I keep dreaming of you.” 

“Of me?” 

“Yeah.” In the middle of the room, Sora stopped, his feet together and his hands hidden behind his back. Instantly, he remembered the knife that Sora must’ve still had. His breathing shortened. “I keep dreaming that you’re trying to say something, you’re screaming but my hands are over your mouth. Three times I choked you to death. What are you trying to tell me?” 

A chill ran over his spine, goosebumps on the skin. His shoulders raised out of instinct. 

“I know that dreams probably don’t mean anything.” Sora continued, shrugging, his hands hanging loosely at his sides now, empty. He breathed out. “But you were saying something about a lake earlier and I didn’t listen to you. I think you have me confused with somebody else.” 

“No, I don’t. I know I don’t. Sora, you’re the answer, I just can’t figure out the question.” 

“What question? The whole time I was behind bars I didn’t know what you kept going on about. I still don’t. You’re…” Sora shook his head. 

“I’m not crazy. We have a connection. What you feel, I feel, and what you experience, I do, too. Our… Hearts…” He paused. No, that couldn’t have been right, because he didn’t have one, though it made complete sense; the flashes over his eyes, the bruises on his skin, the memory of a heartbeat across his chest, it had all been Sora’s heart connected to his husk somehow. A sick heart sickened the body, thus a lively heart pulsed under the skin, but how? How was Sora’s heart affecting his soul? 

“Sora, three months ago, I almost died.” 

Sora’s shoulders promptly dropped at that, lips parted in a muted gasp. His face read morbid fascination, a perfect example of it, eyes wide and frantic with the topic, pale near the moonlight. Sora took a step closer in his interest. 

“Really?” 

He nodded. 

“I almost drowned. It was so cold, so dark in the water. Completely silent, and, in a fucked up way, kind of peaceful.” He breathed. “I thought that really was going to be the end for me.” 

“Peaceful.” Sora muttered, pensive, his brows pinched hard together. “When did you feel peaceful?” 

“Deep down in the water, when I knew there was no hope for me, no more fighting. It was over and it was done and there was peace.” 

Much closer now, Sora took the liberty of sitting next to him on the couch, blue eyes blown wide. 

“How did you survive that? You were too close to the edge.” 

“My best friend saved me.” 

A sort of clear revelation painted Sora’s face with understanding right then, made him lean back onto his seat a bit, the beginnings of a nod that never happened on the angle of his neck.  

“Of course, your best friend.” 

“I haven’t been the same since. I promise you, Sora, my entire life used to be different than this.” 

“Yeah, of course it did. You’re never going to be the same again.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense, I--” 

“Roxas, you saw the other side. You felt the cold and you saw the dark; you know there isn’t a tunnel and there isn’t a light. That kind of shit changes a person forever.” 

“How do you know that?” 

His question made Sora’s gaze quickly flick away from his face and take up the portion of the room behind him instead, the expanse of moving shadows across the walls, lost in the partial darkness, bright blues clouded over with gray for the first time. A distant beeping circled the house, hurried steps echoed across the second floor, the center of his chest hurt. He could smell antiseptic and grew nauseous from it, his arm pierced with discomfort. 

“I’m just guessing.” 

No, he wasn’t. Cots filled the foyer and small curtains separated them. He blinked, but he wasn’t really here. The center of his chest burned.

“No, I know about the hospital.” 

He watched Sora shut his eyes at that, the setting of his jaw accompanied by an overwhelming chill that spread from the very center of his heart all across his body, cooling his hands and freezing his throat. The beeping grew louder and the thin hospital blankets did nothing to warm his feet. He had been sleeping on burlap. 

“So you know it was a mistake.” 

It had been, truly, it had, but there had been no other options at the time. He had known it then as he knew now that rewriting history would’ve given him the exact same narrative as before, and the very same faux ending that had only really been a hiccup to something greater, and worse, with a potentially similar way out. He didn’t agree with it, but he felt it; the undeniable truth, the lack of an escape. It was all a different kind of rerun to Sora. 

“I don’t know why you were sent there.” 

Sora gave him a brief look before getting up from the couch. 

“Don’t take your best friend for granted, alright, Roxas?” 

Of course, his best friend. He would’ve never been admitted had Riku not been there for him, to catch him as he fell, as the world had been swallowed up by the dark, lights completely off, cold at the edges, piercing through the very core. He watched Sora cross the foyer toward the archway, quiet, fingertips numb and an ache resonating across his chest. Sora’s heart inside his soul. 

“Goodnight, Roxas.” 

He laid back on the couch, face up at the ceiling and eyes further up still to look out the back door, through the glass at the clouds outside. An empty husk connecting with a living, beating human heart, mimicking its feelings, mimicking its experiences, but why Sora? What drove his soul to seek out Sora’s heart out of every other heart in the world? The clouds slowly floated above the ocean, lined with moonlight silver, brilliant against the darkness of the sky. Maybe it had to do with what Axel had told him about, the unnatural strength of his soul that had even seeped through Saix’s fingers during capture. Maybe that surplus was connected to Sora, maybe the heart that had flicked out of existence for only a mere second had been Sora’s. The hospital, the needle; he brought a hand up to his own chest, to touch where the scar was, where it hid under his shirt, just over where his heart would’ve been. Was this it, somehow, what connected the both of them? Sora’s heart flickering out, dying for a quick second, through this scar? Then Sora must’ve had one, too. This was where their souls connected, where the surplus left him and entered Sora’s soul, or vice-versa; if his husk had been molded in the image of Sora’s body, then the surplus had never been his in the first place. It had always been Sora’s. 

The following morning darkened the sky with heavy clouds packed with rain that never actually fell. They all had breakfast together, huddled up around the kitchen island for warmth, the food courtesy of Riku’s culinary abilities that graced them with some pancakes and hot cocoa. Despite coming from a box, the pancakes were very good, and Roxas would’ve never criticized them anyway, especially if that meant being the first one to break the silence since entering the kitchen. He simply ate his fair share, sipped gingerly on the cocoa, and held the mug with both hands to warm them up while Riku took their plates to the sink.

Thoroughly showered and in clothes that actually fit him, Riku looked like an entirely different person this morning, taking it onto himself to cook breakfast and clean up completely unassisted, limp still present but not holding him back at all. His hair was up, his face was washed, and Roxas could’ve sworn to have seen the ghost of a smile there while the pancakes were being flipped. Now it was long gone, but Riku still looked far less threatening than he did the night before, in a soft wool sweater and light tones that framed him kinder, rounded his features and put some color to his face. It was almost deceiving; if Roxas had met him in these clothes instead, as the host of a lovely morning under this expensive roof, he would’ve believed Riku to have been somebody else completely, who would’ve never been able to slice a man’s neck open and bathe in it. Somehow, this perfect recreation of an exemplary citizen scared him even more. 

In clothes that better told them apart, that had never been in Roxas’ closet, and that he’d never wear anyway due to their colorful accents, Sora didn’t look like a cheap doppelgänger anymore. He sat two stools away and quietly picked at his pancakes with a fork, sneaking passive glances in Roxas’ direction for the entirety of their breakfast, every time he thought himself unobserved. He didn’t say a word the whole time, though it was clear that he must’ve had something heavy in mind, that ate at his insides and crawled up his throat with each glance, as if hoping to get caught, hoping that Roxas would’ve returned the stare if only to have a reason to open his mouth and say it, ask the question, let it out, but he didn’t. Roxas didn’t look, avoiding him with his head down, because if Sora really wanted to speak to him, if he really wanted to say something, he would’ve sat closer. Like yesterday, he would’ve taken the very next seat to him, looked him in the face and asked it. But he didn’t. 

Roxas wondered if Riku’s presence had anything to do with that. 

After breakfast, the two went upstairs, leaving him to his own nonexistent business in the first floor, which really had been the very polar opposite of what he’d wanted them to do, but that he’d been too timid to confront, rendering him solitude, his personal poison, and a lot of it. With no one to talk to, his phone scattered through Radient Garden’s underground tunnels and the back door locked, keeping him away from the ocean, he ended up meandering aimlessly through the long hallways and the wide rooms of this house as his first shot at a healthy escapism that wouldn’t have him clawing his face out instead. He passed through various rooms and various windows that overlooked the ocean, the black clouds in the sky, the ominous promise of rain in the afternoon, and tried not to think of the outside world, the going ons of the organization, how close Axel must’ve been getting to find him here. 

Axel. He stopped in front of a slim, tall window that cut a long portrait of the sea and failed to keep from picturing Axel just outside, black boots digging into the sand, approaching slowly but surely, just like the rain that hung over the shore. He wondered how Axel would approach the house, if he’d come in breaking windows and shooting guns or if he’d show up in the very dead of night with a single dagger to his hip, perfectly silent, three precise slashes away from putting them all to rest. He wondered just how much Axel must’ve hated him, and it pushed him to turn away from the window. He didn’t want to know.

Roaming from room to room, he came across a bathroom and decided to take a shower, something that he hadn’t done in what seemed to have been a long time, because the whole of yesterday felt as if belonging to a completely different reality that didn’t feature him anymore. The warm water poured down his body just as thunder crashed not too far out, deafeningly loud, enough to shake the very tiles that he stood on, but that, somehow, didn’t scare him. Quite peacefully, he listened to the fat drops of rain hit the sand and roll down the roof and imagined himself right under it, under the dark clouds and the wrath that they brought. Perhaps lightning would’ve struck him then, shut off all the lights and steered the helm for a while, so he could finally take a break. He would’ve liked that. 

Leaving the bathroom, the foyer called him back as the only spot in this house that he felt familiar with, where he could sit and watch the rain pour heavy into the sea, make it angrier than it already was, writhing and tossing and swallowing up the beach on the very other side of a thin slice of glass that separated the stale air that he breathed from the wind that raked the sand away. The sea rose fast, closed half the distance between the back porch and its jaws in an entrancing fight for possession, made more powerful by the gale. It advanced, retreated, advanced and brought part of the beach with it, growing with the tempest that only fed its might. He wondered how long it would take for the ocean to claim the entire house at this rate, and guessed not long. 

“You’re wearing the same clothes from yesterday.” 

Sora’s voice broke through his violent thoughts and made him turn around to look at his unrelated twin, to watch him cross the foyer in thick socks and a jacket that he hadn’t been wearing just this morning, bulkier, warmer. Maybe the second floor windows had been opened. 

“Yeah, it’s all I have left.” 

“You could wear some of mine. They’re upstairs, but I can bring them down for you.” 

“Thanks, but it’s okay.” 

Sora stopped next to him by the glass doors, his bright blues giving the rain a disinterested glance before setting themselves on him. 

“Why did you free us?” 

That was the sort of question that he had been avoiding. 

“You really thought I was someone you knew.” Sora continued before he could’ve answered, level and matter of fact. “I’m not, I’m just me, so what are you gonna do now? Are you gonna sell us out to your friends?” 

“They’re not my friends, and you don’t get it. They’re hunting me as much as they’re hunting you, if not more, even. I’m a traitor, Sora. I jeopardized the deal, lost a high-paying client, ran away with the merchandise; everything I shouldn’t have done, I did. Checked every single box in the book, so, really, I’m dead.” 

“Merchandise.” Sora mused. “What do you mean by that? Why am I involved?” 

“I don’t know why they chose you, but I think it was because of me.” He turned to face Sora fully now, the ocean drinking up the rain off his peripherals, the shadow of the falling drops on his cheek. “Last November, did you feel different? Did you feel more real? I know it sounds stupid, but… Did you? Like a missing piece of you was back?” 

Sora squinted, almost leaning away from him, but ultimately deciding to remain put.

“Yeah… Yeah, I did. Did you?” 

“I felt like part of me was gone.” 

Sora watched him curiously. 

“What are you saying? Who are you?” 

“I can’t answer that, but November was when it all started for me. I have something that belongs to you and I don’t know if I want it anymore. I just, I kind of want to just be me again.” 

Sora had said that he had seen the other side, but it hadn’t quite felt that way; it had seemed, to him, like a reconnection of sorts, his husk broken and his soul leaking out through the cracks, emptying him out, flowing back to where it belonged, back to its original self. Maybe that had been the fracture that had reconnected the two of them again, even if only for a split second, one soul mistakenly apportioned to two bodies and an endless yearning for unison. Part of him had flowed back to Sora, touched Sora’s heart, and linked the rest of him to it, stronger this time, defying the laws of the reaping. Maybe it didn’t work the way that Saix had told him it did, and maybe that meant that he wasn’t really supposed to be. 

“What are you talking about?” Sora asked, a crease in between his brows, beyond confused. 

He shook his head; that really wasn’t worth getting into, especially given the fact that Sora was a human. 

“I just don’t know what to do. I don’t have anyone to help me.” 

Axel would’ve known what to do about this, about all of it. He would’ve known what to do next. 

Sora placed a friendly hand on his shoulder, a thumb grazing the neckline of his hoodie, warming up his skin, making it prickle with what seemed like a hundred needles wrapped in cotton. He glanced at the hand without moving his neck, suddenly very uncomfortable in Sora’s presence, under his touch, seized in a desperate need to jerk away, to push Sora off and scream his throat raw, but utterly unable to, petrified in front of him like a soul in a corpse. 

“Don’t worry, you have me. We’re in this fucked up mess together, Roxas, Stockholm syndrome or not. We’ll find a way out.” 

A brief, friendly squeeze on the meat of his collarbone and Sora let go, releasing him to move away, to step back and bash through the back door shoulder first, but, still, he didn’t move. This time as a conscious choice, not to freak Sora out or even himself. He didn’t know where this had come from. 

“I wasn’t the one who captured you, but, uh, the optimism is nice, I guess. Thanks.” 

“Yeah, maybe you didn’t, but you’re still one of them. You know the one who did it, you know how it works in their circles; you can help me. You can help us. I’m sure you can predict what your boyfriend’s gonna do next, so we can avoid him, at least.” 

“Axel? I have no idea what he’s gonna do.” 

“Are you super sure about that? Just think for a second. What do you think he’s doing right now?” 

Right now, without him, Axel must’ve been doing extensive research on every possible escape route that they could’ve taken from the warehouse to any shelter connected to one of them, because targets on the run didn’t simply sleep on the street and live off of hard cash; they usually resorted to someone’s house, a friend, family, places that they had been to before and money withdrawal from someone’s bank account, hence the beach house. Axel must’ve already gone through that club, Destiny, the community pool, the dorm that those two used to live in, and the Radiant Garden subway station, because his phone had taken a call in the train. Axel surely had already traced it to the exact wagon that they had been in, the very line that they had traveled through, and mapped it out with all of its destinations and all of its stops, though, he supposed, that had been it. From the warehouse to the beach house, they had only used the leftover money in his wallet; no credit cards or ATM withdrawals or other phone calls, meaning that, after the subway, their traces had been covered. He couldn’t imagine what Axel was about to pull off next to get here, because Axel was going to find him no matter what. He knew that for a fact, knew that Axel would’ve never just given him up. 

“He’s probably searching every single inch of the metro.” He answered. 

“So he has no idea we’re here.” 

“Not yet, I don’t think.” 

“Alright, we’ve got some time. Another day, at least. We were thinking about flying to Europe to meet up with Riku’s parents.” 

“No. Crossing the border is the same as shouting where you are.” 

“Roxas, we just want to get away from here. From all of this and from all of them. Go as far away as possible, you know?” 

“Start walking, I guess.” 

Sora gave him a look. 

“Dude, if we don’t try, what are we gonna do? Sit here and wait for them to catch up?” 

“Well, yeah, that’s how hide and seek works.” 

The tightness of Sora’s jaw told him that he had chosen the wrong words. 

The next day brought them more of the same cloudy weather, except with less rain and lighter skies. The ocean still thrashed, though, angry and lonely, now with a breeze caressing its ripples and howling through the upstairs windows, as if voicing its despair. As usual, Roxas watched it from the back door, the way that the waves had retreated overnight and most of the clouds had drifted away, uninterested in a battle that had been lost. In the silence, he wondered if the two upstairs would come down soon, for last night’s dinner that they had skipped and today’s breakfast that should’ve already begun, but the longer he waited, the more he started to realize that there wouldn’t be any company for him today. He guessed that those pancakes had been the limit to Riku’s friendliness, or maybe his unhelpful, and, quite frankly, fatalistic mindset with Sora last morning had been a deal breaker. Those two wanted to save themselves, after all; they were on vastly different headspaces. 

The morning skies cleared up into a gray afternoon, which slowly darkened into a harrowing night, and no one came down the stairs, nobody to see him or make him any company. He didn’t know what those two had been eating all day, if anything at all, but he had been starving for hours and decided to finally visit the kitchen, by himself if needed be, to search for anything that he knew how to make. Granted, he wasn’t very good at cooking, but hot cocoa was easy to put together, and cookies were readily available in a cabinet, so he stuck to that, sitting at the counter by himself, watching the sky grow progressively darker over the hours, clouds shifting and the wind returning. If nothing tragic had happened upstairs, then he guessed that those two had been avoiding him, which he didn’t blame them for, because reasons to avoid him were aplenty. He wasn’t even fun to hang around on a regular day, and everything he had told Sora so far had only inflated the guy’s despair, so, really, he got it. If he had the choice, he wouldn’t hang around himself, either. He didn’t even know why Axel did it. 

He didn’t know why Axel did a lot of things. 

An exhale escaped him from deep within, sagging his shoulders down, the crushing weight of loneliness a very real presence in his chest. He wondered how angry Axel must’ve been at the treason, and if he were hunting Roxas down as a sort of personal business to end, despite what Saix had told him to do next, kind of how he had traced down and eliminated the men who had jumped them at the bridge all by himself. He had really become Axel’s worst enemy, going against every single rule that Axel had ever taught him. He wished he could’ve apologized more before running off; he hadn’t known that that would’ve been his only chance. He had wronged Axel enough for two lifetimes and regretted every single step of the way. He wished he could’ve told him that. 

Upstairs was strictly off limits, but he left the kitchen and went up anyway, regardless of what the other two were going to say about it; he just couldn’t be by himself right now. He physically, mentally couldn’t, not while the clock ticked and Axel closed in on his location. It was too depressing to think about, that their next reunion would’ve been final, and that he’d never have been able to make up for everything that he had done, all of the trouble that he had caused Axel, all of the misfortune that he had brought the organization. He really had amounted to absolutely nothing. 

Meandering quietly down the long hallways of the second floor, he heard Sora’s voice, soft and low, muffled by what must’ve been a bedroom door. He followed it down the corridor to the only source of light around here, a bright sliver under a closed mahogany door. He put his ear to it. 

“--across the state?” 

“We’ll take my dad’s car and stay at my aunt’s house. She’s always liked me.” 

“She’s going to tell your dad. I think staying here is better.” 

A pause.

“Riku? I don’t think going to--” 

“Hold on. Roxas, come in.” 

His blood immediately turned to ice, he froze by the door. 

“Roxas.” Louder this time, making him jump back a step. “If you’re going to listen in, might as well open the door.” 

With both cheeks burning, he turned the knob and walked in. 

The sight that greeted him past the door raised his brows high as he closed it behind himself, this being the widest bedroom that he had ever seen, a huge bed with matching nightstands and a mounted television taking up only about a third of it, the opposite third composed of a writing desk, potted plants, a rug and two open doors, one that led to a walk-in closet and one to the bathroom. The final and very central third was where the two humans were, sitting on a couch with a rug and coffee table in front of it, angled just so it’d face the television, or, depending on the seat, it’d face the double glass doors of the balcony, partially covered by thin, flowy curtains that fluttered with the breeze. Looking at it, Roxas longed to rush past those two straight over to the very end of the room, to pull the glass doors all the way open and step out, breathe in the ocean, feel the wind blow right through him, grip the railing and lean over it. 

“Sora tells me you’re in no rush to get away from here.” Riku’s voice made his eyes redirect themselves onto the humans and the tall floor lamp that illuminated them. Partially hidden behind a portion of the U-shaped couch was a mini fridge that explained everything. “You think running is useless.” 

“I just think this is a race against time, putting off the inevitable until we run out of minutes.” 

“Life is a race against time, but I don’t see you killing yourself over that.” 

His brows bounced in response, eyes widening for a quick second, revealing a weak point right there, the fact that Riku’s words had affected him. The glacial blues that watched him noticed the breach, would’ve never let it pass by anyway, the lips underneath them suppressing the urge to smirk. Deeply uncomfortable, he redirected his gaze downward, at his own two feet that shuffled in place and kept him from just running right out. Perhaps coming up here had been a mistake. 

“There’s really no way out, then.” Sora mumbled, making him look up again, at two blues cast off into the distance, unfocused, more sorrowful than lost. With shoulders down, Sora was the picture of a broken man. 

Roxas’ heart skipped, his lips parted. 

“Well, there is one.” He spewed out despite himself, faster than his brain could’ve processed what he meant. His shoulders raised in a half-shrug that never dropped, blood rushing quick down his veins as the glint of Sora’s eyes met his face, wide blues brimming with hope now, chest filled up because of him. His throat closed. 

“For you.” He corrected himself, though the damage had already been done.

“What is it? What’s the solution?”

“Well.” Under the scrutiny of Sora’s expectation, and the skepticism of his boyfriend’s slitted boscage blues, he could feel himself heat up from the core, burn at the edges. He breathed. “It’s not perfect, but it’ll give you a chance to escape.” 

Silence, growing impatience in Sora’s posture, leaning forward, and further disbelief in Riku’s body language, back against the cushions, arms crossed over his chest, shut off, almost condescending. Ice pierced through his chest. 

“Sora, I’m the one they’re really looking for. If we split up, and I stay behind, they’ll eventually stop pursuing you, I’m sure. You’ll still have to skip town and start over, but, at least, you’ll have a shot at a second run.” 

Slowly, a crease formed on Sora’s forehead. Next to him, Riku neared a smile, but didn’t quite reach it. A twitch tugged at the corner of his lips instead. 

“A sacrifice?” Sora whispered. The way that he leaned onto his hands, practically off the seat, but hanging limp to it, showed just how on the edge he was about it. He scowled hard. “There has to be another way.” 

“No, there really isn’t.” He crossed his arms, passing the shivers that ran down his spine as a sign of nonchalance. There was a knot in his throat that he refused to acknowledge, and, turning around, swallowed it down without second thought. “I’ll take off tonight, so you’ll have time to pack.” 

A rustle, and he knew Sora had gotten up. 

Riku remained silent. 

“No, you’re not. I’m not sacrificing you.” 

“It’s--”

“It’s  _ not _ the only way. We’ll find something better.” 

“Sora…” 

He knew that he shouldn’t, but turned back around anyway, welcomed by the softness of the blues that he knew watched him, somehow both fierce and determined underneath itself. His heart sung warm in his chest, he breathed in deep. 

“Roxas, you saved us. I don’t know why, or what you want in return, but I would’ve been dead without you. I’m in your debt, and if you do this, I won’t be able to pay you back, so don’t. Just come with us; three thinking brains are better than one. We’ll find a way, I promise.” 

Right there, he saw it, the light in Sora’s heart as an all-encompassing aura, bright enough to blind and warm enough to smite, burning through his sternum as proof of its existence, a straight line between the hollow of his chest and the exuberating life that poured out of his other half. He felt it, Sora’s confidence, his genuine belief that the three of them together could’ve actually come up with a successful plan to delude the organization, and nodded his blind agreement to it, entranced by the magnetic pull that seemed to have always pushed him to act against his own better judgement whenever Sora had been involved. He had rebelled because of it, put himself in danger because of it, lost Axel because of it, destroyed his entire life because of it. This deep-seated soul connection was stronger than his own self will, and, for the first time, it scared him. 

Sora’s smile faltered. 

“Now tell me what the payment is.” 

“The payment.” 

“Yeah, for getting us out. I don’t know what you want from me, but, but I’ll give you my best, I just, I hope it’s not, I hope you won’t need a jail cell for that.” 

He scowled. 

“No, Sora, this has nothing to do with them.” 

“So what is it? What do you want?” 

“I…” He swallowed, face hot. “I don’t know.” 

Riku’s watchful gaze burned through the side of his face, sewed his mouth shut and wiped his brain clean off of anything even remotely related to the truth. He couldn’t say a single word inside of this room, it was too dangerous. His heart pounded against his ribs to prove it, sweat breaking on his hairline, hidden under the bangs. He wasn’t safe. 

Sora squinted, the crease in his forehead digging in deeper. 

“Is this about that connection you said we have?” Oh, fuck. “The, uh, the question that you can’t figure out?” 

It took all of himself to keep from squeezing his eyes deep into his skull and begging Sora to shut the fuck up, his hands closing in fists instead. 

“I guess” was his vague reply. 

“You guess? You said we’re connected, that you know what I feel and what I’ve been through, like, what does that mean?” Stop. “What were you talking about?” 

Stop. He pressed his lips into a thin line, physically keeping from exploding his guts all over the rug, barely breathing, his pulse loud a layer underneath the skin. Riku’s attention on his face was thick enough to asphyxiate, tight around his throat, cutting past flesh. He couldn’t do it, couldn’t answer Sora, not physically, not mentally, not here. It was clear that Riku was one easy, good reason away from slicing him into pieces, probably the bearer of his knife, too; hand itching to pull it out and drive the blade deep into his stomach. He knew it, it was in the coldness of those arctic blues, in the total lack of compassion that Riku felt for him, in the complete indifference to his existence. The meaning of their escape lost on him, or even as the primary motive of his behavior, if the sole reason of his involvement had been to have risen up as Sora’s savior. Roxas had very inelegantly crushed his hero complex and was about to pay for it. 

Sora took a step closer, suddenly, quickly, making him jump back in response, startled, eyes wide, on high alert and showing it to the both of them. Not a good look, not very smart; Axel would’ve never screamed himself vulnerable like this, not an idiot. He had given both of these humans the upper hand, and kind of just wanted to leave now, to find the closest bathroom and lock himself inside, to drown his stupidity in a tub and soak up the salt. At this point, he deserved to have been driven through with his own knife, and would’ve understood if Riku calmly got up to do it. Sora made to approach him instead, another sudden scare, and he finally took off. 

It came as no surprise that Sora would’ve followed him out. 

“Roxas!” 

He didn’t know the second floor layout, couldn’t remember where the stairway was, especially not in the dark, and ended up running down the hallway to the first source of light that he managed to see through the frenzy that blinded him, three doors down, rounding the corner. It would’ve been impossible for him to have known beforehand that the light that filtered in came from the moon, shining through the clear glass and thin curtains, out a set of double doors that marked his cul-de-sac. He tried the doors only to find that they were locked, had his blood chill into ice, fear rule his veins, and turned around, his back pressed to the cool glass as Sora rounded the corner after him, a long breath leaving his lungs, his feet slowing down to a lax walk. He could hear the quickness of his own pulse drumming loud on his ears. 

“Roxas, Jesus, it’s okay.” 

“Is it?” 

“It’s just you and me here.” A sigh, and Sora ended the approach five feet from him. “What is it that you don’t want Riku to know?” 

His throat closed. Of course Sora knew. 

“I noticed the way you kept looking at him, white as a ghost, like he had just shot you. Why don’t you trust him?” 

Blood soaked through Riku’s face, dripped from his skin, the knife slippery in his hand, yet enclosed in a firm fist. The precision with which it had found the jugular still appalled him, punched his lungs clean through, his breathing coming in short breaths. His jaw set. 

Sora noticed. 

“He’s not going to hurt you. You’re on our side.” 

Sora reached a palm to him, one step closer, and his back promptly straightened up, his body trying to push through the glass, phase into it, teleport him out onto the balcony somehow, if he believed it enough, maybe even throw him over the railing, if he were lucky. Sora made to touch him and he squirmed, eyes shut, face turned aside. Silence, a heartbeat, and nothing. He opened his eyes; with both arms hanging loose at his sides, Sora simply watched him, brows tugging upwards, shoulders drooping with dejection.

“Why are you afraid of us?” A whisper, Sora’s voice barely even present. He might as well have imagined it. 

“The payment are answers.” He blurted out, deaf to the question just posed to him. He didn’t care; this formulated act of strength was his last line of defense. “Answers that you don’t know you have.” 

“Answers to what?” 

“To who I am.” 

Sora cocked his head aside, but said nothing. It gave him a second to think this through. 

“Sora, your heart beats in my chest. I feel it, and I know it’s yours. A memory of it, a copy of your emotions, of how it feels to have friends, how it feels to be loved, to be held and know you’re safe. I can experience all of this because of you. Because you’ve experienced it, too.” He leaned away from the glass, watching the crease on Sora’s forehead, delicate brows that weren’t sure whether to curve upward with compassion or drive down with confusion. He filled his lungs to the brim. This was it. 

“I’m not supposed to be here.” He admitted. “I never was, and I don’t want the ghost of your feelings haunting me anymore, not when all I get to experience now are awful things. Before, it was nice. With Axel, it was worth it. I wanted it, I wanted to feel all of it, all that he could give me, but, now?” He shook his head, throat closing, making it hard to speak. “Now there’s nothing good left. Now there’s only doom, only the countdown to the demise that I brought onto myself, that I knew would come, and expected, but that it’s still so terrifying, Sora. I’m so fucking scared, and I don’t want to feel this, I don’t. I don’t want to watch it happen, and feel the hopelessness, the despair that comes with the darkness. I can’t go through that again; I just want this to be over. I just want to sink, and sink, and disappear.” 

His face was warm, his eyes were burning, and Sora’s form was a haze behind the tears that blinded him. He breathed in, gasped for breath in short bursts, and managed to keep from sobbing, from breaking down completely, even though his entire body trembled, cold as ice. Sora drew nearer, his whole face a big blur, though his silhouette closed in, ate up most of Roxas’ vision and made him retreat, his back against the wall again, this time to the accomplishment of nothing. Sora touched him anyway, two soft hands that coiled around his forearms and seemed to burn through his jacket sleeves, as if electrifying his bones with a taser. He tried pulling away, but Sora kept a firm hold on him. It hurt. 

“Roxas, it’s okay.” 

Sora’s voice was so compassionate, held so much sympathy for him that he almost believed it, even feeling deep within himself that, truly, it  _ was _ okay, but his arms stung, his skin seeming to fry under Sora’s palms, and he couldn’t stand it, had to get away. He pushed Sora off, both hands on his chest, hard enough to make him stumble back, air knocked out of his lungs. Strangely, he felt it, too; just as winded as Sora, as if he had pushed himself on the chest, which, taking their matching wrist bruises, wasn’t hard to believe. He was fighting himself. 

Sora did let him go at that, but gave him no time to really get away, recovering quickly and latching onto his forearm before he could dash for the hallway, which resulted in him pushing the guy off again, and feeling the results of the struggle on himself. Not content, Sora lunged for him, seized him anywhere he could, would continue to do it until the battle had been won, until he’d finally decide to stop fighting, and the more he shoved Sora away, the worse he felt, sore and winded, being shocked with every touch and boiled to death under Sora’s unsteady grip that successfully cornered him by the balcony doors. His conscious choice not to hurt the human in the middle of all of this, in retrospect, might’ve been his downfall. It sucked, but he wouldn’t have abandoned the thought regardless, even if it had rendered him with his back against the wall. 

“Stop!” Sora shouted, hands on his wrists, tight and piercing straight past the skin. He had to squeeze his eyes to keep from groaning at it. “Roxas, stop, please! Calm down.” 

He didn’t want to conform, wanted to shove Sora to the ground, his arms burning through blisters, his chest and sides searing with pain, but, still, he breathed, and set his jaw, and did his best to keep from trembling at the pulsing pain that throbbed every fiber of every muscle. With eyes shut and lips pressed into a thin line, he listened to Sora’s ragged breathing slowly come down, the grip on his wrists start to loosen, his bones aching as if completely shattered. He suppressed a whimper perfectly well. 

“Roxas, I’m your friend. I don’t want to hurt you.” Sora breathed, his hands only resting on the cuffs of his jacket now. Freedom was tempting, but he didn’t move. “I want you to know that you can trust me. You  _ saved my life, _ dude. I’m in your debt forever, and I want to help you, but I don’t know what you’re talking about. What do you mean, my heart beats in your chest?” 

He opened his eyes and slipped both hands out of Sora’s grasp in one fine swoop, out of his reach and onto his stomach. One hand latched onto Sora’s side as the other pulled at skin, pinching him over his shirt, twisting his flesh hard enough to make himself suppress a groan as Sora, caught entirely by surprise, yelped loudly in pain. It was quick, one hard pinch and Sora backed off, two full steps away from him, a palm over the burning on his stomach. Roxas was free; the sting on his own stomach practically nothing if compared to the aching of everything else. 

“That’s what I mean.” 

“What the fuck?” Sora’s strangled voice matched the betrayal in his eyes. 

“Look at it.” He spoke with both hands down at the hem of his own shirt, ready to lift it up. “Right now, trust me. Look at it.” 

Sora visibly hesitated, but pulled his shirt up anyway, just the enough to expose the red mark by his navel. As he did, Roxas mirrored him, heart beating fast, leaping up to choke him with its chambers. Under a confused scowl, two blues flicked from the red mark on one body to the exact same red mark on the other, both illuminated by the moonlight, seeming paler than they probably really were. Sora was utterly bewildered. 

“What?” 

“Make another one, pinch yourself; you’ll see it on me, too.” 

Sora did. The new redness that bloomed on Roxas’ stomach made his eyes double in size, pushed him to take a step back. It was thrilling to have someone understand what he meant, what he had been talking about this entire time, and experience the same ridiculous bullshit that he had been going through for so many months now; almost even exhilarating in the worst possible way, like pulling another soul to share the same layer of Hell with him. Driven by an impulse, he reached over and pulled Sora’s shirt up further to reveal the same ugly scar that he knew Sora had, that he had hated on himself this whole time. He showed his own, and Sora immediately stumbled back, eyes wider than he had ever seen them. 

“What the fuck? Roxas, just, what the fuck? What are you?” 

He breathed in, parted his lips, and almost even said it. The word was on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t. Ultimately, he couldn’t. He knew what had happened to the others who had revealed themselves to humanity, and refused to become a statistic. 

“What did you do?” Sora barreled on, grasping for anything. 

“Nothing. This isn’t my fault.” 

“So, is it, is this the connection you were talking about? The one we have?” 

He nodded, heart beating out of his chest. In a way, he wanted Sora to know. He wanted him to figure it all out, to piece it all together himself just to have someone else to share this with, another pair of shoulders to carry the burden. It was so difficult having to coexist with him like this, having to spend his last days on Earth with two humans who didn’t, and couldn’t know about him. Not that it really mattered, because his end would’ve amounted to much of the same regardless of who did it, though, deep inside, he kind of wanted it to have been Axel. Either one of these two stabbing him clean through with his own dagger would’ve been just fine, but, still, seeing Axel one last time, even if for that, would’ve been far more than he could’ve ever asked for. He pulled his shirt back down. 

“My heart beating in your chest?” Sora mused quietly, his own stomach fully covered again. “Are you a replica of me? Some… Clone?” 

“I guess you could say that. I’m a copy of your heart.” 

“What are you made of?” 

Riku’s voice sent a shockwave down his spine worse than Sora’s hands ever could. It pushed him to cower into the corner, eyes open wide, quickly finding the silhouette that hid in the darkness, just behind a wall, in the middle of the hallway that they had come from. He could barely breathe, his pulse rushing fast by his ears as Riku leaned away from the corner, face impossible to read, and stepped toward them. Sora moved in his peripheral, but he was too shocked to look at him. 

“You and your friends, you’re not human. That’s obvious.” 

Slowly, Riku advanced into the off-hallway pocket that led to the balcony, blocking the only path out of here, now directly in between the two of them and the stairway. On a very brief, almost nonexistent thought, Roxas chided himself for not having taken the right turn a handful of minutes ago; the stairs down had been right there the entire time. Riku’s limp had dissipated into a near regular walk by now, too small to really draw any attention at this point, but Roxas was sure his leg still hurt, his weight leaning only on one foot for a reason. He kept that in mind. 

“So, what are you? What do you call yourselves?” 

His heart skipped a beat, and he quickly glanced over at Sora in a desperate attempt at comfort, to connect with a source of camaraderie and kinship, even if faint, even if only partially there, because they had just shared something unbelievable, and were one and the same, souls combined, brothers in arms. He just really needed someone on his side right now, utterly terrified of finding himself completely abandoned again. Instead, he found the same bewilderment from before still on the blues that watched him, Sora standing by the wall, wide-eyed with surprise and gradually retreating in fear. Sora, a whole human, afraid of him. If his heart hadn’t just been slashed straight across and pierced him through the chest, he might’ve even found it within himself to have laughed. As it was, he had to repress a sob. 

Steadily, Riku began to close in on him, extinguishing the distance between the two of them step by step, and making the atmosphere heavier, the air harder to breathe, the short run to the staircase seeming more impossible to achieve with each passing second. He gasped, suffocating in place, his heart slamming fast against his ribs, and he knew he had to get away from here. He had to make a dash for it, despite the odds against him and the high rate of getting caught, murdered, tossed out of the balcony. He had to do something, and, with one sharp inhale, took off from the corner, sliding along the wall in an attempt to put Sora in between himself and Riku, as an obstacle. His quick evasiveness startled Sora into a useless catcher, too shocked and afraid to move, while Riku immediately came for him, incapacitated leg not seeming a problem somehow. The chagrin that washed over him from Riku’s agility was comparable to the crippling terror that the moving silhouette in his peripheral cooled his blood with. Immediately, he knew that he couldn’t win this. 

His human shield only worked to a certain extent, not being enough to stop Riku from going around his boyfriend and catching Roxas on the other side, two strong arms clasped hard around his waist, his capture only a dozen feet from the dense, deep darkness that engulfed the spiral staircase leading down. He promptly trashed about in Riku’s arms, clawing at the sweater over his skin and reaching back for his face, his hair, anything to yank and pull. When his hand connected, it was ugly, drew a hiss out of Riku and got the enclosure disassembled, Riku letting go to fight him properly. He turned, elbowed Riku in the chest, shoved him off, but still wasn’t able to completely free himself, Riku’s hands like stubborn magnets to his arms, grabbing him from place to place anyway. It pissed him off, pushed him to throw punches in a desperate attempt to get away, but his tries were all deflected and transformed into opportunities for grappling instead. 

Riku didn’t hit him once, blocking his blows and going for grabs instead of punching him back, Riku’s obvious point being of seizure, not pain; his revenge a different kind. It freaked him out, put him on frantic mode, made him deaf to Sora’s screams and his own knowledge of any escape tactic, because the stakes were so high, and tonight was probably the last one he’d ever see. He shouted, terrified, trying to push Riku off but failing, his vision trembling and his arms soon being trapped in strong fists that twisted them around his back, pushing him down to the ground. Retroactively, he wished he would’ve kicked Riku in the leg instead of eating the floorboards. 

“Riku, don’t hurt him!”

“I’m not.” Riku panted, his weight on the low of Roxas’ back and his hands locked around Roxas’ wrists. “He’s fine.” 

His arms ached, his shoulders strained, and his muscles screamed in discomfort, but he wasn’t hurt. No bruises, no cuts, no broken bones; Riku’s skin didn’t burn to the touch or shock him with thunder like Sora’s did. The front of his body was fully compressed onto the very clean floor of this house, and his arms were twisted uncomfortably over his back, but Roxas still breathed, half of his face on the ground, eyes closed shut. He could only wonder what Riku had in store for him that could’ve been worse than two broken arms and still remain lifeless on the ground, because fighting it, he was sure, would’ve made it all worse. Riku could’ve easily dislodged his shoulder with a single pull. 

“Roxas, what do you call yourselves?” 

He pressed his lips into a thin line, eyebrows scowling preemptively, because he knew what lack of cooperation would bring him. They had a whole subdivision for this kind of information extraction back at the building. 

“What is it that you and your friends call yourselves?” 

Nothing. He couldn’t, he really couldn’t. 

“You’re probably not even feeling anything.” Riku mused, that being closer to a thought spoken out loud than an actual observation. 

“Look at his face, of course he is.” 

“No, Sora, they don’t have hearts; they can’t feel anything.” 

So Riku already knew. Well, this was pointless. 

“Nobodies.” He whispered, sounding muffled by his own cheeks, face smushed onto the floorboards. 

“Nobodies.” Riku repeated, solemn and thoughtful. “That’s what you are. You wanted Sora’s heart, didn’t you?” 

“His soul.” 

“What?” Sora interrupted, and he could vividly picture the shock on his face. “You wanted my soul? For what?” 

“To sell it. We--” 

Riku pulled him away from the ground a bit, so his voice wouldn’t be completely swallowed up by it. He opened his eyes to look up at Sora. 

“We’re soul dealers. We sold your soul to the highest bidder.” 

“Why me?”

“Why not you?”

Sora fell silent. 

Outside, the sun hid behind thick rain clouds that weren’t ready to pour down yet. Roxas watched from the couch, sitting in the one corner that he had claimed for himself, wearing the jacket that Axel had bought for him only a few weeks ago, knees tucked under his chin and arms locked around his legs. No one had come downstairs all morning and he knew that he should’ve smashed through the back door and ran for the sea by now. He wasn’t welcome here as much as he wasn’t welcome at the building anymore and wasn’t sure what he had been waiting for, putting this whole act off as if time would’ve saved him. As if he could’ve come back home and apologized, easy, simple, maybe to the repercussion of nothing more than a stern lecture. Burying his nose into the flipped up collar of his jacket, he breathed. Axel had complimented him in it. 

A noise, soft, the pressing of socked feet on the foyer tiles, and he turned around to see Sora reach the bottom of the stairs, lingering by it in much of the same timid way as four days ago. They had been here for so long that four days didn’t do this lifelong sentence justice. Death row would’ve been fairer than this. He gave no indication of moving from the couch, so Sora took it upon himself to go for the approach, both of them still in silence, Sora’s muted footfalls the only sound in between them. Sora took the seat nearest to him. 

“Riku was wrong about Nobodies not having feelings, wasn’t he?” 

Sora’s quiet tone kept the topic secluded in the air that they shared. 

“No, he’s right.” 

“But you were in pain. I saw you.” 

“It doesn’t work like that. We remember some things.” 

“Remember? So you used to feel them?” 

“It’s complicated.” He turned away from Sora’s face, his eyes focusing out the glass door instead, onto the ocean ahead. “And anyway, I’m different. I have no moral ground to talk about it.” 

“You feel things, though. I know you do. I see it in your face when you look at Riku. When you look at me. When you look at your boyfriend. There’s something in there, I can see it.” 

“You really have to stop calling Axel that.” 

“I thought you slept together.” 

“Yeah, we did.” 

The dark gray of the ocean was the stillest that he had seen it so far, not a single breeze rippling the water, not one breath stirring the surface. He didn’t have to see Sora’s face to know the look on it. 

“Don’t you miss him?” 

The name closed his throat and set his jaw. Miss him? He wasn’t sure. He didn’t want Axel here, not with the repercussions attached to that, but he did want to see him again, if that meant going back to what they used to have, to the simplicity that was waking up with Axel by his side, going out with Axel in the afternoon, being transfixed by the shape of his lips and the movement of his hands and how quick he could be with a dagger, how seamlessly he merged with the darkness, the strong scent of tobacco that radiated from his clothes, the soft leather seating of his car, the heavy warmth of his body when it laid in between his thighs. He wanted those days back, when he could feel Axel’s knuckles under his palm, pull him into an alley and kiss him full on the mouth. He gritted his teeth, a sob getting caught just behind his tongue. 

“No.” He croaked out. “All I remember is regret.” 

Sora stared into the side of his face, but he didn’t care to return the look, his eyes trained onto the unmoving water, waiting for the rain to pour down and trace undulating patterns into it. A shuffle, and something shocked his hand, making him bring it up to his chest as a gut reaction to it. Their eyes met, and Sora’s blues softened. 

“It’s okay.” Sora whispered, reaching for his hand again. “Trust me, it is. I’m here for you. I’m your friend.” 

Clearly, the terrible electricity that emanated from Sora’s skin didn’t bother him as much as it bothered Roxas, and didn’t affect him as it did others, or he wouldn’t continuously try to make a point by touching anyone as much as he did, as often as he did. Not to mention that Sora was, in fact, not his friend, but an unfortunate half of the total amount of pieces that made up the patchy puzzle that was his existence, if not more than that. As far as friends were concerned, he only had one, but as a prisoner of this beach house stranded from all humanity, Sora’s efforts to get close to him were the closest he would’ve ever gotten to a fabricated friendship, so, he supposed, he’d have to take it. If he wanted company, this was the best it could’ve gotten. He offered his hand, and Sora took it. 

Absolute darkness swallowed him then. 


	6. Resurrection

The ceiling greeted him tall and gray, moving shadows that overlapped each other darkening portions of it with the outside breeze, the pitter-patter of rain drops calm and soft on the back door glass panel, their slim shadows running along the hardwood floor. He sat up and something shifted, not a visual but a feeling, the thought of finding a long lost missing piece. A hand laid over his chest, felt the heart pulsing underneath the skin, a distinctive difference in the air, in the innermost section of his soul, very clear, almost tangible, but, somehow, still elusive to reason. He knew it existed, but couldn’t place it, identify it, explain it. In the air that he breathed, in the rushing of his blood, in the very center of his chest, he could feel it. He knew something was different, and it was very, very right. Surely, it hadn’t always been there; it had come from this little nap.

A nap? He hadn’t taken a nap here. Earlier, when Sora had come down to visit, he hadn’t taken a nap right after. No, he had, well, he had, he, well. Shit. He really didn’t remember. Alright, so Sora had come down, sat next to him, they had talked about his feelings, and Sora had taken his hand. Had Sora taken his hand? He wasn’t sure. The exact memory had a difficult time coming to him, but he did remember reaching out to Sora, and having Sora reach for him back, and then nothing, absolute darkness. Well, Sora had probably shocked him into unconsciousness, then, how embarrassing. He understood why Sora hadn’t stuck around if that had really been the case.

“Sora?” He called out, getting up from the couch. Silence, only the faint patter of the rain outside. “Sora?” Louder now, as he meandered through the partial dark, his feet absently taking him toward the stairs.

Again, no response. He climbed up to the second floor, advanced into the hallway, but didn’t have to go far to see the light that came from the only open door on this level, the same place that he had found the humans in last time. He supposed it must’ve been Riku’s personal bedroom, and, if not, the master suite. The size clearly indicated as much, though he wasn’t sure how families worked.

Walking up to the open door, he came across a baroque painting of disquietude; Sora, in bed, resting partway under the covers, his darker skin much paler than before, his eyelids heavy with fatigue, and his chevalier on the edge of the mattress, sitting as to face him, one frail hand cradled in between two that clearly cared for him. Roxas’ presence drew the humans’ attention to the door, and had two different types of blue fix themselves on his face, the usually bright and lively ocean now clouded over and sickly with gray, and the usually sharp boscage now startlingly compassionate, careful, even tender. Sora looked worryingly ill, and Riku’s concern for his best friend was genuine enough to manifest itself within the chambers of Roxas’ own heart, though only a little. It was a pang amongst the general discomfort that he had been trying to ignore.

Immediately, he knew that he shouldn’t have come up here. It was crystal clear, in the tenderness of Riku’s posture, in the vulnerability of his concern for Sora, that Roxas was rudely interrupting something very intimate that he wasn’t supposed to have been a part of. He wanted to leave, he wanted to apologize profusely and promise never to barge into this room again, or even go up the stairs unprompted, but, with two sets of blues expectantly watching him, he suddenly couldn’t remember a single word, his brain vacant of the English language and his body stuck to the ground, unsure how to move. He thought that, maybe, he should’ve stopped looking, that turning away would’ve been the right thing to do, but, much like the rest of himself, his muscles had petrified and unlearned how to act, rendering him a still figure under the archway, wide-eyed and silent. He felt stupid.

“Hey, Roxas. Did you just wake up, too?” Sora asked, voice small and weak, hanging in the air by a thread, but still successful at making the awkwardness of his presence a little less tangible; such was Sora’s nature. With matted hair mussed over his forehead and deep purple bags under his eyes, the natural glow that Sora carried around himself was dim. Seeing him like that put a frown on Roxas’ face.

“Yeah, I did. What happened?”

“You were both passed out cold for about eight hours.” Riku chimed in, the warmest Roxas had ever heard him, the hand on top of Sora’s caressing the skin with a thumb. It added something to the atmosphere, this simple gesture of affection, that cut Roxas right through the chest and punctured a lung. He wasn’t sure why, or how it closed his throat with something so deeply upsetting, but he couldn’t look at it, and trained his eyes on Riku’s face instead. Suddenly, it was hard to swallow.

“Sora was with you.” Riku clarified, his tone almost accusatory now, a sharp edge added to his blues that Roxas was a lot more familiar with, but that still didn’t help the knot in his throat, because he knew this so well, too; it hit so close to home, somehow, in an ethereal plane of existence, a fog of a memory, of a feeling that he had struggled very hard to push away and shelf at the back of his mind. His stomach hurt, but it wasn’t from the allegation.

“We were just… Talking.”

“Roxas didn’t do anything.” Sora defended him. “It must’ve been something else.”

Directed straight ahead at the one who meant the world to him, the two boscage blues softened and grew perfectly round, all sharpness gone, all edge lost under a crease of the brow that tugged upward, brimming with concern and overflowing with compassion. It seized Roxas’ heart in a tight squeeze, making it excruciating to watch, pushing him to finally turn away and step out of the doorway. He couldn’t breathe, Riku’s unfiltered tenderness for Sora imprinted on his retinas and burning out of his eyes, setting fire to his lungs, making him walk away to bury himself in solitude, downstairs where only the rain would make him company, completely overwhelmed. It hurt so bad that the hand over Sora’s own touched his knuckles in the exact same way that Axel had done to him, that the one at Sora’s bedside cared so deeply for him, would’ve done anything for him, backed him to the ends of the Earth just like Axel had, the grip that had pulled him out of the water, the greens that used to watch him with much of the same sympathy, same warmth. He covered his face with both hands, the heels of his palms digging hard into his eyes, his lips twisting up into an ugly cry no matter how hard he tried to keep it at bay. He didn’t know where this had come from, or why it had seized him so strongly, but when his body found the couch, he crumbled into a thousand pieces, his pain muffled deep into the white cushions that enveloped him.

What they used to have had been murdered and he held the bloody knife, no remorse, because the exchange had been too scintillating to pass up, had blinded him with promises of the truth, the real truth, of self-discovery and the knowledge of everything that he had ever felt, that he had ever been through, every reaction to every experience, the revelation of his real self, his real character, perfectly unadulterated for once, untouched. Genuine. Such a tall order had accompanied a fitting price, cruelly high, that he had paid. In blood and in tears, he had paid it, and now bore the worst of that, sobbing mutely against white foam, shoulders shagging with each breath, wishing he could’ve found a third way out, a strategy to have had it all, the option to not have sacrificed Axel, the only one who gave his existence meaning. He whimpered, arms tucked underneath his own chest, hugging himself through the shivers, his entire body trembling despite the warmth of the foyer. Tragically, he now understood why Sora had hurt himself two years ago; laying cold at the bottom of the abyss, the utter peace of the dark was more than a little tempting to reach for, even if an ugly scar was the payment.

The beach outside was quiet, no howling winds tonight, no thunderous rain, no source of light powerful enough to have cut through the darkness that only grew thicker, that colored the ocean perfectly obsidian, glasslike and smooth, rose into the sky and filtered through the clouds, tainted them opaque to block off the stars, the moon long swallowed up itself. He watched the utter stillness of the sea in silence, his chest aching empty, the hole that his best friend had left behind bleeding and throbbing and so much more present than before, making the tears flow quietly despite himself, his eyes burning on their own accord. There was nothing he could do but sit here and let the night take him in, listening to the persuasions of the ink in the water, wishing he could unlock the back door to meet up with it, let it drag him down to the cold, cold bottom and find it warm.

In the darkness, something moved. He watched it absently, with the detached interest of a passenger, of a ghost that had no intention of staying here long. It began to approach, only a small shuffle at first, the moving of particles far too similar to really tell apart, and, slowly, it took up a vague human shape, with wide shoulders and long legs, but no discernible beginning or end. It made his heart skip, his blood rushing cold, this apparition clearly in its way toward him, an easy target behind a thin pair of glass doors that made the entire foyer visible for miles, his ghost form gone and real fear drinking up his veins now. The sand was dark, but he saw even darker footsteps push onto it, growing closer, the shadow of a human becoming more and more definite, watching him. He sprung from the couch and moved away from the door, heart hammering against his sternum, a good few feet between himself and the shadow that ambled across the beach and climbed onto the back porch. He could barely breathe, and was about to reach down for the dagger in his boot when he saw it, the silhouette that took shape, the height and broadness that he knew with his eyes closed, the long coat that he had last seen his best friend in, the spikes of red hair that could’ve never been brushed down, the sharp-angled face just across the glass.

He was about to fucking faint.

This was the day, then, he thought, when capital punishment would’ve finally brought justice to the ones that he had so thoroughly wronged. Forgoing the knife, fully useless against the one who had taught him how to wield it, he simply stood there, in the middle of the foyer, watching his executioner do the same from behind the door, close enough now to show color, the brightness of his hair, the muted brilliance of his greens, not as sharp as he had expected them to have been, and not as angry, either, but clouded over with something that he couldn’t well read. Unquestionably, he wasn’t the best at figuring Axel out, but this look on his face, the way that his brows pinched just the slightest bit together, the near-imperceptible squint, the hard setting of his jaw, it meant something. This face, watching him in silence, making Axel almost grimace, what was it? He had never seen it before, and didn’t know how to read it. His throat closed around his own tongue.

Axel’s chest moved as he breathed in once, deep, eyes perfectly set on him, shoulders tense, the lapels of his jacket flipped up to shield his neck. He held it in for a second, his breath, unmoving, neither of them daring to break the stare, Roxas’ shadow long across the rug, darkening the white of it, the only source of light coming from the street, out the front door, far behind him. A heartbeat, two, and Axel exhaled, his eyes dropping to somewhere in between Roxas’ neck and stomach and making his heart skip a beat, because he knew this one. This look, this introspection, he knew it. The deep breath, the visible hesitation to go further, the one final doubt before a hard set decision; Axel was nervous. Stalling by the back door for this long, it was almost as if he didn’t even want to come in. On a regular mission, he would’ve already neutralized the first floor by now, in complete silence, a single dagger in hand and total confidence in his precision, but tonight was different. Maybe he didn’t completely hate Roxas just yet.

Axel threw a glance at the door handle, then back up at him, indicating the lock that he didn’t have a key to. In silence, he shook his head, wondering if he would’ve even done it in the first place. His heart hammered, his hands shook, and he was literally staring death in the face, though, in all honesty, he probably would have. Still, he would have. For Axel, he was sure, he would’ve done anything. Without a word in his mouth, he watched his best friend slip a lockpick from a pocket and work on the door. Two, three tappings, a delicate flip of the wrist and it clicked open, made him immediately take a step back, heart stuck far up his throat now, beating just behind the tongue, because, suddenly, things had just gotten a lot more real. The greens fixed themselves squarely on his face as Axel walked in, shutting the door behind himself, swift and quiet, the silhouette of a dark angel with nothing in between them anymore, nothing that could’ve kept the dagger at Axel’s hip from the flesh of his stomach. One stifled breath in, and Axel walked over.

He shut his eyes, still holding his breath, hands shaking, lips quivering, the knot in his throat big enough to have choked him where he stood. He couldn’t watch this. It had been what he had wanted, in the end, to have seen Axel one more time before it should all come down, but actually going through it was a lot more terrifying than he had imagined; his eyes squeezed and burned to prove it, his body doing a poor job of suppressing the sobs, his hiccups the only sound to break the silence. A touch to his cheek and he flinched preemptively, barely breathing, not at all ready for what was about to happen next and chiding himself for it. Another try, and he didn’t pull away this time, let Axel touch his face with a hand, run the back of his fingers across wet skin, rub at the tears that flowed down his cheeks. He almost leaned into the touch, but stopped himself just short of doing it, thicker tears coming out with how tight his heart had been squeezed, how painfully it ached in his chest. It hurt so bad to be this close, to have Axel be this soft to him, and know exactly why. On the one hand, he wanted Axel to just fucking do it, to wipe him out of existence right there and be done with it, but on the other, he really, really needed this. Axel cupped his jaw and the side of his neck, thumb swiping across his cheek, palm warm and soft to the touch, and brought him close, exactly how he used to do, until his forehead met with the top of Axel’s chest, warm under a thin shirt, jacket always open at the front.

The overwhelming urge to bury his nose on Axel’s skin, to rub his face on the crook of Axel’s neck and breathe him in and let himself completely go was stronger than anything that he had ever experienced. The warmth of Axel’s body so close to his own, radiating heat in the arctic temperatures of this foyer when he already had his entire face pushed onto Axel’s neck, nose nuzzling where it met with shirt and collarbone, made it impossible for him to keep away, to stop his arms from slipping underneath the jacket and snaking around the thick waist before him, pressing his entire body against Axel’s chest, face smothered into his neck, hip to hip and boots interlaced. The fact that two big arms would’ve ever enveloped him back had never even crossed his mind, reciprocity something unattainable, but that, when they did, wrapping him up in warmth and care, he realized that this was exactly what he needed. This, right here, was what made feelings worth it.

Very briefly, as a passing thought, he noticed that the memories didn’t reach him through this hug when they normally would, Axel’s touch always rousing some sort of false past attached to it that hadn’t affected him tonight, somehow. He wondered if these four days apart had given him immunity to Sora’s memories, or maybe the necessary control over them to keep moments like this untainted, but didn’t care to really find out, not in Axel’s arms, not with sweat and cinnamon right under his nose; not tonight. For once, he was able to enjoy, to truly and carelessly enjoy a moment of his own making that nothing could’ve compared to. With the strength of Axel’s arms squeezing him this close, his knees nearly buckled underneath himself, if only to have Axel carry him whole, just to make himself swoon. But they didn’t. They bent, and made Axel hold him even closer, but didn’t fully give in.

“Goddammit, Roxas.” A whisper, a low growl right in his ear that sent shivers down his spine, made a breath catch in his throat. This close, with Axel’s lips grazing his jaw and two strong arms practically holding him up, nose buried on Axel’s skin, eyes shut and his entire body heating up, he really couldn’t help himself. He knew that Axel was angry, that Axel was only here to puncture him with a knife, but the way that he had said it reminded him of their time together, anger so close to desire, the scent that enveloped him just the same. He shuddered, his grip around Axel’s waist tighter, only partially hoping that he wouldn’t notice.

Axel moved to break the embrace, but he didn’t let him, keeping his hands fastened behind Axel’s back, his feet shuffling a step or two in accordance with the other pair to maintain their synchrony together. Not fighting him much on this, the most that Axel accomplished was enough space for their eyes to meet again, infinitely closer this time around, one strong-willed lean away from planting a kiss right on Axel’s mouth. He didn’t, though, however much he stared at it, the perfect Cupid’s bow. Not yet.

“Do you have any idea of what you caused?” Lips moving, teeth almost bared, the flashing of tongue. God, he hadn’t even heard the question, entranced by the prospect of straight-up leaning forward, the memory of Axel’s mouth on his own, so warm, tongue on his palate and teeth sinking on soft skin. His eyes slipped shut, he turned his face aside.

Focus.

“The magnitude of what you did?”

Alright, he was being reprimanded; it didn’t take a genius to figure that out, but what threw him off was Axel’s tone, the tenderness of it, how gently he had been speaking, his voice clashing with the message that he had been trying to send. He couldn’t have been angry, because Roxas knew him angry, had seen his disagreements with their boss before, knew the exact pitch of his voice used for that, and this was something else, not completely unfamiliar, but that he couldn’t really place. Axel had used this tone before, and with him, too, but when? He glanced up at Axel’s face, to see the small crease in between his brows, the way his greens almost squinted, all round edges, jaw set. He knew what this meant, and breathed in deep.

“I know you don’t want to hear an apology.” He began, voice level, feeling the quickness of his own pulse rush under the skin. “But I really need to say this, and it’s all I have to give you, anyway; Axel, I’m sorry. I really, really am. You’re everything to me, and I’m so glad you’re here, I’m so glad I got to see you again, even if I don’t deserve it; you’re here, and I’ve been dying to tell you just how much I regret everything that happened. I’m so sorry.”

As he spoke, Axel’s face changed, his scowl deepened and his lips moved, almost pursed, his jaw clenching tighter, the ghost of a grimace that never happened. Was he about to cry? If Axel should’ve ever cried in front of him, he wouldn’t have known what to do, except cry right alongside him. His stomach flipped, his blood running cold as Axel swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing, a long breath stuck in his chest. Green eyes big and round, hiding behind a partial squint, not nearly as glassy as they could’ve been. Axel would last.

“I thought you were fucking dead.” A whisper so ghostly that it might as well not even have been uttered, that had barely reached his ears at all, the smallest tone that Axel had ever used with him. It was new, and he couldn’t read it, but when the arms around him tightened the hold, he knew exactly what was happening, and choked on his own heart.

“I thought they had ditched you after the subway.” Axel continued, a little louder now, but not by much. “Didn’t think you’d have stuck around for this long. Do you know how haunting it is to follow a trail and not know if there’ll be a corpse at the end of it? I thought I was too late. I thought I’d never get to see you again, that I’d never even find you, Roxas. Or worse, that when I did, it wouldn’t have mattered.” A sharp breath. “Do you know how fucking angry I am right now?”

“You’re not angry.” He blurted out, eyes wide, heart pounding against his own ribs. “You’re terrified.”

Axel’s jaw set, and, just like that, the embrace came undone; the arms that had held him once loosened and dropped, their hands grabbing onto his shoulders to push him off. This time, he didn’t fight it, and let Axel add a foot or so of distance in between them, their bodies no longer touching, because it had been his fault, and he deserved it; shouldn’t have called Axel out like that, a correct assumption that should’ve remained behind his lips. Despite the fuck up, however, the embrace had been nice while it had lasted; nice to know that Axel’s form hadn’t changed from what he remembered of it, his own self-made memories, the ones that they had put together. Axel took a step back and ran a hand through his own hair, eyes cast off aside to avoid him, absently watching the darkness that swallowed up the spiral staircase.

“I’ve got no idea what to do with you tonight.” Axel shook his head, dropped his hand. “You know what happens next.”

His heart skipped a beat.

“Make it quick, then.”

Their eyes met, greens squinted.

“No.”

That cut him right through the chest, deep and painful, tight around his throat like a noose. He swallowed, eyes watering despite himself, despite how calm he wanted to seem right now, how okay with it all he wanted to portray himself to have been. His heart throbbed, squeezed tight in its cage, rib bones seeming to have punctured it, bathing themselves in spilt blood. His face was warm, lips pressed together to keep from quivering, throat aching something awful, impossible to speak, to utter a single word in self-defense, because he understood Axel’s judgement perfectly, even if it hurt to have heard it. Even if it absolutely destroyed him. In petrified silence, he nodded.

The scowl on Axel’s face was back, though a little different this time around, more offended, it seemed. His fault, surely, even if he was too thick to know exactly what had caused it, what he had just done. Maybe it had been the tears; Axel had never liked them, anyway, though it really didn’t matter now. Preemptively, he swallowed, preparing himself for the worst, his throat aching from it.

“God, Roxas, that’s not what I mean. I’m not doing this, man; I won’t go through this bullshit again. I refuse, no, I just…” A falter, a sudden halt, almost like a choke, and Axel turned away from him, head shaking a bit, both hands stuffed into his coat pockets, shoulders raised up in extreme discomfort. His pulse raced from the sight, Axel’s distress deeply unnerving to him, always and forever, to the point of altering his own posture, standing far straighter now, his breathing growing shallow.

Quietly, and muttered to the darkness, Axel finished the sentence. “I can’t.”

His heart skipped, something different caught in between his ribs, pulsing up to the throat. Again? This, again? He squinted, blood flowing cool through his veins, slower now, pushing the knot in his throat up to climb it. Again, chasing after a member of the organization, another one gone rogue, the assassin tasked with taking out the traitors, except Axel loved that part, going after the strays, tracking them down, even guessing who would’ve been next; their evenings often spent with Axel smoking out on the balcony and speculating, probably this name, probably another, something they had said, a passing comment, a sharper look, nothing ever lost on the redhead, so this must’ve been different. Contrasting circumstances, not just one more target to silence, another idiot running off, but someone who mattered. A friend pushed down the rabbit hole.

“Is this what happened to Xion?” The question escaped him through a frenzy of thoughts and guesswork, his vision distorted by his own screaming mind, the emails on Saix’s computer, Axel’s uncharacteristic discomposure about all of this, every trace of his last pupil carefully erased, a flawlessly executed job only comparable to the keen perception of a professional, someone continuously tasked with the perfect disappearance of his own kind. Axel turned to look at him, quick, almost as if burned, eyes wide and sharp, his pupils two invisible dots drowning in emerald green. Through the speed of his own beating heart, that didn’t have the reach to affect him.

“Did she rebel?” He continued, breathing ragged, an insatiable hunger for the truth eating him at the core. “Did she run? Was she different, too, and did she figure it all out? Is that why she’s gone, because she got too far, knew too much? Did you do it?”

“Shut up!”

It startled him, the harshness of Axel’s voice, thunderous enough to shake his rib cage, so incongruous with his character and the general nonchalance related to him that it shocked Roxas beyond comprehension; he didn’t think Axel would’ve ever forgo his composure, not directly in front of him, most definitely not because of him. It made every single word that hung from the tip of his tongue immediately dissipate and the fog in his head clear right out, throat dry, eyes doubled up in size, lips parted, utterly speechless. He blinked, the tears from before far gone now, only their tracks left behind. In the silence, they watched each other, the way that those two greens cut through him easier than any dagger, how soulless they made his best friend look right now, how badly it terrified him. A cold heartbeat, blood slowly draining from his face, and Axel dropped the stare, gaze down, a breath leaving his lungs. The sight had his shoulders loosening up, as well, lungs working properly again; his entire body always mirroring the redhead, his existence a poorly recreated image of the original.

Their eyes met again, and the greens that welcomed him were the same ones that he knew from back at the building, familiar and kind, the connection to his best friend’s soul. Axel walked over with two strides that soon closed the distance between them and raised a hand, reaching to touch, but that stopped in midair instead, Axel’s entire body growing still for a moment. Roxas straightened up in response to it, quiet, heart skipping a beat; Axel must’ve heard something that he hadn’t, eyes cast off into the distance, but only for a split second. When the hand came down to awkwardly land on his shoulder, he knew that something was wrong, all idiosyncratic warmth of Axel’s touch lacking from this one, far too impersonal.

“I’m taking you with me.”

Two greens were set on his face, but not watching him; the words spoken at him not really said _to_ him. The actor in a play. They must’ve not been alone.

“Fine.” He played along, letting Axel turn him around and take him across the foyer, far to the back, where the glass doors framed the ocean in two tall pictures, still as a painting. The hand left his shoulder and pulled on the handle, manufactured the opening and closing of the door with fake footsteps to accompany it, the setting of a trap. Axel brought a single index up to his lips to indicate silence, then covered his mouth with that hand anyway, before he could have agreed to it, though he didn’t blame him; after everything that he had done, Axel trusting him now would’ve been nothing short of imprudent.

It was just Riku, he wanted to say, coming down to check on him, surely, to find the source of that one loud shout just now. He grabbed Axel’s wrist to do that, to free himself and say it, but, as his hand connected, his eyes fell on the telltale arch of Axel’s right arm reaching behind himself, and he wanted to scream. One swift movement, and the gun was out, perfectly snug in Axel’s hand, aimed with precision at the archway leading to the stairs. He panicked at that, had a scream muffled by the palm that silenced him, bit it hard and pushed Axel on the chest. A gunshot, discreet and quiet through the silencer, but feeling to have been much louder from this close, as if aimed at him instead, the bullet cold and lodged directly into his heart. Then, a series of shots, one after the other, exasperated and angry, he was sure, because the shove must’ve made Axel miss when he never did. Another shove, blood in his mouth, teeth having broken through the skin, and Axel let him go with a hiss, the foyer growing silent again, no more bullets cutting the air.

He ran straight for the archway, cursing himself for not being able to see well in the dark, to know whether or not his friend had been hit, his mind in turmoil and his heart beating fast, a hammer against his ribs, vision shaking as he got closer. Axel called for him from the foyer, but he couldn’t really hear it, brain far too muddled to really pay attention, his only thoughts on Riku’s warm corpse that should’ve been laying just around the corner. He rounded it with his heart beating right in his mouth, throat strangled by it, almost blind with how hard his entire body was shaking, but Riku wasn’t there; not on the ground, not on the steps, but halfway up the staircase, a shadow climbing quickly to the second floor. He shouted Riku’s name while following him up, but had no response.

“Riku!” Again, this time at the top, as he tried to catch up across the second floor, Riku all the way down the hallway already, either ignoring him or too scared to stop. He ran, but the shadow got to the room before he ever could, and shut the door right behind itself, locking him out. When he got to it, there was nothing he could’ve done to get through, so he resorted to reason, the only thing he had left.

“Riku, it’s me! It’s just me. It’s okay, I’m not going to hurt you. You know that. You know me.” Each word that managed to squeeze past his throat sounded more strangled than the last, his pulse rushing loudly by his ears, heart beating on the roof of his mouth. A loud, scraping sound in the room, and he could only imagine Riku riddled with bullets pushing furniture around, possibly to barricade the both of them in. He shuddered. “Riku, I need to know if you’re hurt. This could be very dangerous. Are you bleeding?”

“Of course he is.”

He shut his eyes at that, inwardly cringing at how careless Axel sounded, how nonchalant he was about all of this, as if these were just two other faceless targets to him, simply more of the same, another batch of the lot, because, in truth, that was exactly right; Axel had only come here on a mission, after all, not really for him or anybody else. He wouldn’t go back to the building with his best friend, or even leave this beach house at all; none of them were, at least, not alive. To Axel, he knew, the humans in the room meant absolutely nothing, the last four days spent without him.  

“Don’t do this.” He whispered, keeping it so his voice wouldn’t travel through the door, but remain in the darkness of the hallway as Axel approached, hands in his coat pockets, a sort of lethargy to his step, a languid pace that crossed the second floor toward him with long strides. In no hurry, Axel had nothing to worry about, not with the two humans trapped in a room, practically waiting for him to bust through the door at his discretion, in his own time. He had a small crease on his forehead, a brow raised slightly higher than the other to showcase puzzlement.

“Don’t do what?”

“Hurt them.” He answered promptly, the words on the tip of his tongue, no regrets. Axel watched him with two brows up now. “I know you’re only really here for me, so why go after them, too? Just take me out right here and get this over with. Go back home, forget this place even exists. Saix won’t care; you’ll be fine.”

“Roxas, I’m here for all of you.”

“Right, sure, technically, yeah, but my neutralization is what really matters here, _I’m_ your actual target; the merchandise is just an afterthought. I know it is, so you can let them go, and tell Saix you never found them, that I was the only one here. He’ll believe you, he always does. That’s what friends do.”

The scowl on Axel’s face deepened.

“Why are you protecting them?”

“Because they’re _my_ friends, and they didn’t do anything wrong. They don’t deserve this. The Hell we’re living in is my fault, not theirs, so just leave them out of it, Axel. Please.”

Axel squinted, something in his face softening, almost lost in the middle of his confusion, two dots connecting to a revelation that, by the looks of it, hadn’t been anticipated, a friendship that he surely hadn’t considered possible before, and not that Roxas blamed him; he didn’t even think that he would’ve ever said it, but, he guessed, it hadn’t been all untrue. Sora had made it clear to him, time and time again, that they were friends, and, even though he still didn’t trust Riku, still didn’t feel completely safe around the guy, he didn’t want him dead. That, to a Nobody, was enough reason to consider the man a friend. Tangentially, he wondered what Axel thought about that, him having more than the one friend, Axel’s uncontested spot in his life, on the podium of his relations, no longer reigning a monopoly. His heart skipped a beat, the greens that watched him clouded over with perplexity, squinting with something else, close to what he had seen downstairs, but not quite. Does it bother you?, he wanted to ask, That I let others in without asking you first, that I don’t need your opinion to function anymore? Does it hurt? Does it make you feel?

“You care about them.” Axel stated dryly, the scowl on his forehead lighter now. “Two humans.”

“Yes, I do.”

Does it make you feel?

“I won’t let you hurt them. If you really want to open this door, then you’ll have to go through me.”

“I have a gun.”

“So use it.”

Suddenly, that face was back, the one from downstairs, the grimace that wanted to happen but never did, the almost curl of the lip, what did it mean? The squint, so incredibly different now, the one deep breath, Axel averting his eyes and turning aside, his face only a profile now, gaze unfocused at the darkness. Entranced by it, he took a step forward, what did it mean? A hand closed around Axel’s arm as he leaned closer, body growing upward to peer at the expression that he couldn’t read, to find a clue, to sew an answer together. Do you feel?, he wanted to ask, the question right behind his lips, hanging from his tongue. Is that why you’re so convincing, why humans can’t tell you apart from them, why you do all that you do with me? This whole time, have you always felt?

No, it couldn’t be.

“Roxas, I’m not hurting you.” Voice soft, lower than normal, the greens trained on his face again, Axel turned at a three-quarter angle so both of the tear drops etched under his skin were on plain sight. “I already told you that.”

“Then what are you going to do? You already know I’m alive, that we’re all alive. If you’re not fulfilling your mission, then what’s next?”

“I don’t know.”

Outside, the rain poured. Axel watched it from the back porch, his eyes absently roaming the inky surface of the ocean, the movement of the water, the way obsidian coalesced with each drop and had their undulating pattern bring motion to it. The air was still despite the rain, fresh from distillation, colder out here than the inside of that house could’ve ever been, central heating on or off. He shivered, his jacket buttoned up on the front all the way to the bottom of his neck, where the hood began, and closed around his head.

“Are you leaving?” He asked, quiet, directed to the rain and the sand. Preemptively, his pulse skipped a beat, the mere thought of further separation distressing enough to squeeze his heart into ice.

“Soon, yeah.”

His eyes shut immediately, the ghostly hand in his chest bursting his insides into painful chunks. He breathed in sharp.

“Axel…”

“Stay here.” The rustling of clothes, and he glanced up to see Axel turning to look at him. “I’ll come by tomorrow.”

A slow breath out, his shoulders dropping, his heart banging against his ribcage for another reason now, the certainty of tomorrow, seeing his best friend again, his words from earlier seeming to have gotten through. The fact that Axel hadn’t finished Riku off or even cared to go upstairs for Sora made him believe in a change of heart, a washing of the soul, a complete scrambling of the brain. Maybe Axel didn’t mind reporting back empty-handed for once.

“Are you picking me up, then?” He asked, the whole day mapped out in his head already, the two of them in the Mercedes driving fast out of town, out of state, new names to their fingerprints and fake death certificates left behind for a successful closure. No more organization, no more murders, no more lies.

“Maybe, maybe not; I’m bringing you a plan.”

“A plan?”

“What to do next.”

Right, the key to success. He had always known that Axel would’ve been the only one to have it.


	7. The acquisition of Love

The events of last night played in his mind on repeat, memories of the embrace lingering just behind his eyelids, the tobacco and cinnamon all-enveloping, the warmth, the reciprocity, the fact that Axel didn’t absolutely despise him. It was barely eight in the morning and he already missed him, ears tuned to any sounds that might’ve come from the street, even if the house was all shut and locked; he felt as if his ears could’ve heard a Mercedes drive up to the curb regardless. Then, the gunshots, Riku running off, blood splatters on the stairway only visible now, under the sunlight, smears where they had stepped on. Riku had been hit, of course; Axel’s reputation with a gun carefully kept, pristine even as he changed his mind, even as he forwent the mission. Sitting on the hallway floor directly across from the barricade that stranded the humans in Riku’s room, he thought of the embrace again, Axel’s arms all around him, his face buried on the crook of his best friend’s neck. The reason why Sora’s memories hadn’t reached him then still eluded him, though he knew it must’ve had something to do with having spent time here, in this beach house, interacting with the humans. Maybe Sora’s friendship and actually getting to know him must’ve pulled a reaction from him, given back his memories and his feelings, replacing them with something else that fit just right, that made Roxas believe it had all been his own doing to begin with, even if it had no name, but filled his chest just as it was supposed to. He wanted to call it a heart, but knew that he couldn’t. 

A noise, dull and heavy, furniture scraping the floorboards, and he got up, ready to see his friends again, to know just how badly Riku had been injured. He wanted to apologize, suddenly, even if he hadn’t pulled the trigger, even if he had saved Riku’s life; somehow, he felt as if an accomplice to the tragedy. Slowly, the door opened, just as he crossed the short distance to it, Sora revealing himself behind it, standing on both feet despite his frailty. Ocean blues widened at his sight, Sora promptly grabbed his arm and pulled him in, the door shut and locked behind the two of them. The sudden nature of it had his pulse racing. 

“What’s happening?” 

“Is he gone?” Sora asked, practically speaking over him, his pale arms already going for the couch that now rested by the door. 

“Yes, he’s gone.” Breath out, it was fine; Sora’s concerns were not his own. For a second, he had thought that they pertained to the wounded. 

Absently, while Sora pulled the couch around to block the door again, he glanced to his left, where Riku lay on the bed, resting shirtless, eyes closed. His skin tone seemed just fine, no changes from the usual, indicating a still living man on that mattress, chest rising with shallow breaths, no cause for concern, simply sleeping. He took a step closer for further inspection, to find where the bullets had caught him, no blood here to help his search. Surely, if Riku had had time to clean himself up, then it meant that he was doing fine. A craning of the neck and he saw it, the unpatched stitches on Riku’s shoulder, disorganized and messy, the punctured skin red and glistening, clean; he must’ve done it himself. The idea of Sora helping him wasn’t exactly convincing. 

“He’s okay.” Sora confirmed, breathless, his frail form crumbling onto the couch limb from limb until he laid haphazardly on it, head propped up on the armrest. Color drained from his face as he wheezed quietly, his eyes begging to slip closed despite how much he fought that. His condition was a lot worse than Roxas had thought, and they didn’t even know where it had come from, what it was; because Riku had been taking care of him, Roxas hadn’t thought to worry. Riku had saved him once, after all; in his mind, as long as Riku had been there, Sora would’ve been fine, but, now, they were both in pretty bad shape. He walked over to Sora, sat gingerly on an unoccupied portion of the cushion, and reached for his forehead, stopping just before touching it, his mind going back to how badly Sora had shocked him before. Maybe that had something to do with his current infirmity. 

Two tired blues locked themselves on his face, and Sora took his hand, removed it from near his head. This time, there was no shock, no electricity, but normal contact that had him able to squeeze the cold fingers in his palm and have his pulse skip from it. This wasn’t right. 

“Sora, what happened to you?” Where did all of the electricity go?

“I don’t know.” Small and weak, accompanied by a light shake of the head. “I feel like shit.” 

His chest tightened along with the hold on Sora’s hand. 

“You’ll be okay.” He promised, pulse ringing in his ears, trying to convince himself of his own words. He had to be okay, he thought, he had to be. He had to, or all of this would’ve been for nothing. His other half. “What exactly are you feeling?” 

“Just very tired.” 

Sora could’ve barely kept his eyes open. One longer breath, and they closed, making Roxas immediately yank Sora’s arm around to wake him up, panicked, his entire soul catching on fire and disintegrating at the mere thought of losing him. Sora wasn’t gone, of course, and pulled away from him in response, furrowed brows creasing his forehead with vexation. It made his face burn. 

“I’m sorry.” 

“Roxas, I’m fine.” Sora cut him off, turning to lay on his side. “I just need some sleep.” 

The thin curtains fluttered with the breeze that swept into the room, flapping against his leg, cool air to freshen the stillness in there, but only a little, entering through the one door of the balcony that he left ajar, his back leaning on the white frame, eyes overlooking the ocean. This was possibly the first time that he had seen the sky resemble a blueish color rather than dark gray, the brightness of the sun scintillating off the water, its rays warm on the skin. He liked it, the puffy white look of the clouds, the calm and relaxed coming and going of the water, not raking away the sand but caressing it, kissing it, something that he had never really experienced back at the building, a city that lived under dark clouds. He wondered if the water was warm, how the movement of the waves felt on his body, if this was why humans loved the beach so much. It made him go back inside to move the couch from Riku’s bedroom door. 

Downstairs, he pulled the back doors open and walked through them, his hair ruffling with the breeze, the back porch roof shading him from the sun. His hands found the railing as he looked out, drinking up every drop of blue in front of him, the lightness of the sand, the lenience of the water, such a radical change from one day to the next. He wanted to go in, this time for a hug and not a swallow, this time for personal addition and not termination. As the toe of his boot found the heel of the other to kick it off, he saw it, in the corner of his eye, the shadow from before that could’ve never resembled one today, not under this sun, not with the brightness of that hair framing his best friend’s face in red. Green eyes locked on his blues first thing, Axel’s wide strides efficiently closing the distance between them, a smile rounding his cheeks at the sight, as the redhead approached to stand in the shade with him. This was Heaven, he thought. This, the warmth of the greens that greeted him, the half-smile that curled Axel’s lips, the uncensored joy that radiated from his best friend’s face, all because of him. His effect on Axel’s life, brightening; not all had been lost. 

As soon as he could, he took Axel’s hand in his own, pulling him closer, their footfalls loud on the wooden flooring of the porch, feet dancing around one another, boots interlaced. The smile that shone down at him widened, Axel stepping into his personal space until the low of his back found the railing, bringing him back to their various times together, to how they used to be before irrevocable change, before he had decided to risk everything, to risk all of this. Axel boxed him in with broad shoulders and a hand on his waist, chests touching, the distance between them gone, the air that the breathed one and the same. His face met with Axel’s own, eyes slipping closed, heart jerking frantically up his throat, trying to climb it, a smile pressed up against his best friend’s lips. He didn’t think that they would’ve ever done this again, that they would’ve ever gone back to the highlight of his life, the glances that were worth a thousand words, the touches that set him on fire. With an arm around Axel’s neck, he kissed him hard enough to stop missing him, and it worked; his chest filled up, his cheeks tingled, and they were back to how they used to be. 

“Are we running away?” He asked, a little breathless, practically speaking into Axel’s mouth from how close they still were. 

A smile in response, a briefer kiss. 

“You could say that.” Axel whispered, voice low, confidential. It made him grin. “How do you feel about the west coast?” 

“The west coast?” Interesting. The furthest portion of the country from here, very interesting. He cocked his head aside a little, watching the greens follow his every movement. “They have good weather, I guess.” 

“True, and what else?” 

“Um. Me and you?”

His answer had a grin break through Axel’s face, a sight so breathtaking that it almost knocked him properly out. He wanted to kiss it, but could barely move, completely entranced. The most beautiful thing that he had ever seen. 

“Yes, but the answer is freedom, Roxas.” 

“Freedom.” He echoed back, voice absent, sounding far to his own ears, the concept of that foreign to him, slowly making its way into his head. Freedom, safely away from the organization, no need to hide, no humans to be afraid of, just the two of them in the west coast, sitting on the beach, water lapping at their feet, a much more peaceful thought than a quick jump out of town. That was much better. 

“Are we going right now?” He asked, pulse skipping, the urge to up and leave crawling under his skin. 

“No, tonight. I’ll come pick you up after twelve.” 

Twelve will never come, he wanted to say; wanted to shout, really, but didn’t. Axel was busy, and wouldn’t have understood what he meant, anyway; the unbearable excitement of it all only felt by him alone, only running in his own veins. Axel had never felt anything as strongly as he had, and simply wouldn’t start now, so, with his chest full to the brim, he bid Axel a see you very soon, and immediately ran upstairs to tell Sora about it, to share this feeling with someone who surely would’ve gotten it. Out of every single human on this planet, he knew that Sora would’ve been the one to understand him. They were two halves of the same whole, after all. 

Upstairs, familiar voices, both humans already awake, still in Riku’s room. Good; it’d make sharing the news even better. He walked in without a second thought, the couch no longer a makeshift barricade, allowing him to interrupt the conversation in here with his physical presence, eyes wide from excitement and not a single regret in his mind. The two turned to glance at him, and he told them everything; Axel’s visit, the kiss, how glad he was about it, and their escape plan, unbeatable, absolutely foolproof, the end to all of this running around that made life miserable. He wanted to jump, really, feverish from the prospect of a future, a real future, his pulse ringing loudly in his ears. For the first time since treason, there was hope. 

The others, however, didn’t seem to share his enthusiasm. Petrified in place, they stared at him as if he had just sprouted a third arm, jingled a key, and locked them all in Hell. It was really off-putting, and managed to drop his excitement a notch, the urge to bounce on his feet no longer present, the skip of his pulse now colder. Fearfully, worryingly, he wondered if he had said the wrong thing, blood rushing cool through his chest, a shiver up his back. 

“What is it?" He asked, palpable stress in his voice. "Aren’t you glad?” 

“He was  _ here?” _ Sora muttered, his voice barely present within this mortal realm at all. "Just now?"

"Yeah."

Suddenly, Riku got up, his movement so curt and stark that it startled Roxas very visibly, a jump to his stance, brows raised. Boscage blues watched him with the familiar sharpness from before that made it hard to trust Riku, or even feel safe around him, back to his usual self, to his public personality purged of the tenderness only reserved for his beloved, the bloody murderer that Roxas knew and feared, that made his skin crawl and his mind scream. Despite the gunshot, Riku seemed just as capable as before, when he had had a knife in his hand, the realization filling his veins with cold terror. Weary, standing straighter and away from the man, he watched Riku walk over, determination in every footfall, the pushed-back shoulders of confidence. It was horrifying. 

"Roxas, you're playing with fire." Voice loud, demanding, very frightening, but he held his head high. Not today. "You're fucking delusional if you think we're getting within twenty feet of that guy. He wants us dead, and you're dreaming about an escapade? Maybe  _ you're _ safe around him, but we're not."

"We're not going." Sora cut in from the couch, hand gripping the backrest. 

Now, that. That had his heart sinking. 

"What?" A whisper, his eyes fully closed in on Sora. "No. No, look, he's not after you guys anymore, alright? Trust me, I talked to him, and he doesn't care. He can help us." 

"No."

"No way."

"Look what he did to me." A hand to indicate the wounded shoulder, but he wasn't looking at Riku anymore, a shadow in his peripheral. 

"He tried to  _ kill _ me." Sora's voice broke. "He kept me in a cage for  _ weeks." _

"He's not doing any of that anymore. I promise. I'd never let him touch you."

Sora turned away, head shaking, eyes cast off to the side, far over his shoulder and his pulse raced, veins bursting through his body, blood flooding his lungs. He wanted to explode. 

"Sora, I'm serious. We'll repair the damage done and help you start over; we'll give you a completely new life in the west coast, new names and new friends. It'll be perfect, swimming in the ocean everyday, visiting the beach. Come on, we'll pay for everything; you can stay with us. It'll be like a forever vacation." 

"Roxas." Sora's voice, a lot different now, far colder than anything that had ever come from him, eyes that cut through flesh like thin air and hurt, singed the skin. Being on the receiving end of that, of something so out of character felt villainous, him being the cause of this corruption. His throat closed. "Go back downstairs." 

A command, spoken without a single look at him, impersonal and professional as if he were a dog, and so he obeyed, no further words in his mouth, nothing else to cut Sora with. He walked down the hallway barely able to breathe, the noose around his neck uncomfortably tight, the awful sensation of having caused irreversible damage. Again. He'd regret this, he thought, climbing down the stairs, the brightness of daylight coloring the steps in blood splatters, the white of the walls ruined, the linoleum at the bottom patterned red. He had never made one good decision in his life, nothing that wouldn’t have affected a massive number of people loosely connected to him, and it seemed that letting Axel steer this one hadn’t been beneficial, either. They didn’t know Axel the way he did, didn’t know all that he was capable of, didn’t believe in his good intentions, and didn’t seem inclined to trust either of them right now, no matter what he said. It stung to learn that after everything that they had been through together, after everything that he had sacrificed for them, but, on the other hand, he kind of got it, too. Trust wasn’t easy to come by. 

He’d prove himself to them later, he thought, making a mental note of it while laying on his claimed couch, the one spot in this house that didn’t make him feel completely out of place, a wide view of the sky and the ocean to keep him company. The humans were too heated for an argument right now, so he’d let them sort their feelings out, a nap the only way he could think of to make time go by faster, the minutes taking forever to tick on by. Midnight would never come. Closing his eyes, he pictured the ocean, the four of them standing on a beach in front of it, smiling, walking on warm, soft sand toward the water. He’d have to learn how to swim at some point; the image of Axel teaching him how soothing his heartbeat. 

His eyes opened, and the sky seemed to have just gotten dark, the dying sighs of the day still lingering about in the air, warmer than it would’ve become in an hour or two. He climbed the stairs resolute, in his arsenal a bulletproof plan that simply couldn’t fail at changing his friends’ minds about Axel, that would make them see him the way he did, that would bring some clarity to the kind of person that his best friend was, loyal to the bone, capable of anything if he believed in the cause. If even Axel had jumped the fence to his side, the one person whose steadfastness was completely inexorable, then, surely, he could coax the others as well; it just took some trying. Confident, he walked up to the closed door and reached for the knob, already on his way to swing it open when his eyes caught sight of a note on it, a small piece of paper taped to the white wood that made him come to a total halt. Instead of grabbing the knob, he took the note instead, pulled it from the door to read it. 

_ Roxas, I’m sorry. I really am, but we can’t take any chances; we already have too little. I’m sure you’ll be okay with your boyfriend, and maybe we’ll even meet in a next life, but, right now, it’s all just too dangerous. We can’t risk it.  _

_ You saved my life and I am so glad to have met you when I did; you’re really something special, the best company I could’ve asked for in a situation like this. Roxas, thank you for everything. You will be in my heart always. I love you so much.  _

_ Forever grateful,  _

_ Sora _

Each passing word made his pulse race faster, his brows creasing hard on his forehead, the noose around his neck trying to hoist him up into the ceiling, throat so tight that swallowing hurt. He didn’t want to believe it, and finally pushed the door open, part of him hoping to find the other two still here somehow, late to their own escape, just one second that would’ve made all of the difference. Instead, the room was completely empty, doors and windows closed, latches on, furniture back in place, fully vacated. His entire body shook, note falling to the ground, his eyes filling up with tears. He had screwed this up, too, and was actually, really alone this time. His chest ached with something so deep and so dark that he couldn’t even stand on two feet, his knees giving out and dropping him to the carpet, a noise leaving his throat strangled and painful, choking him with it, a cry that could barely even be pieced together. In shards, his body met the floor, dissolving his existence into it. 

He wanted to disappear. 

The room was quiet, barren with no one in it, a graveyard with him as the corpse, the clouds outside blocking the stars, darkness shrouding his surroundings. He breathed, ragged and shallow, his vision blurred by falling tears, the entire room submerged. They must’ve done it in the afternoon, then, while he slept. What a deplorable mistake, God; he wished to revert time, to undo so much, actually, that he wasn’t even sure where to start. To not have ran from the warehouse, to not have had Sora kidnapped in the first place, to not have led Axel to the others, to not have awakened anything within himself, to not have fallen into that lake. In retrospect, he kind of wished that none of this would’ve ever happened. In the stillness of the room, he didn’t move, his mind a vast emptiness, drawing an absolute blank. There was nothing to do next. 

Quietly, a sound erupted, soft footsteps in the relative distance, likely climbing the stairs. He opened his eyes, unsure when to have closed them, and was welcomed with the cool tones of the moonlight sifting in through the curtains, light that dyed some of the furniture in sparkling silver and drowned the room in blue. So this was when Axel came to pick him up, he supposed, moving to stand on both feet, every joint aching and every muscling pulling as he straightened. He must’ve been here for a while, then, laying awkwardly on the ground. Not very smart, but, then again, he had never been known for that. Stretching helped very little, his skin pulsing right under his clothes, the footsteps growing closer. His heart skipped, suddenly, something different rushing down his veins now, warmer; maybe Axel could help. Maybe they could find the others together. Turning to leave the room, he met up with the redhead not ten feet down the hall, a sort of ease on Axel’s face. Good, then he was emotionally available for what came next. 

“I need you to help me find them.” He spoke fast, pulse racing loud on his ears. 

“What?” 

“Sora and Riku, they’re gone. They left earlier and I need you to find them. It’s what you do.” 

A slow crease tugged on Axel’s forehead, his brows pinching together. He knew this one, too easy. 

“Why do I need to find them?” 

Blood quickly rushed to his head at the question, hands closing in tight fists, chest in a pang of ice. Axel knew why, of course he knew why; he wanted to punch him in the face and get him moving, checking his phone, going back to the car for his computer, quick. They didn’t have much time. 

“Because they’re my  _ friends--” _

“Roxas, you’re not friends, you’re cohorts.” Voice loud, assertive, making his eyes widen. “You broke them out, they left; that’s what was bound to happen in the first place. You don’t belong with them.” 

“Fuck off.” 

It wasn’t true, Axel didn’t get it. He would’ve never gotten it. Shaking his head, he made to push past Axel in the hallway, but a hand took his arm and kept him around instead. 

“We’re not going after them.” 

“Well, I am.” 

Sharp greens squinted down at him, and the hand on his arm let go. 

“Where did they go?” 

“I don’t know! I  _ need you _ to help me find them!” 

Another squint, eyebrows scowling. 

“You know where Sora is, you always have. Just follow that lead.” 

“No, I don’t know where he is. I don’t have his flashbacks anymore, and I don’t know his feelings, or his memories, or anything. I feel, like, completely disconnected from him now, since you came around. Since… The hand holding.” 

The greens widened. 

“You touched him?” Practically a whisper, low in disbelief, and, he didn’t know why, but it had his face heating up, cheeks burning, throat closed with a knot. Wide-eyed, he stepped closer, a hand absently taking the hem of Axel’s jacket. 

“I just took his hand, I swear, that was it. We were sitting, and talking, and he wanted to hold my hand, and--” 

“He’s alive?” 

He blinked, mind suddenly going blank. What?

“Of course he’s alive.” 

Red brows lifted in surprise, then came down with a thought, undisclosed, that he couldn’t well read. His heart tried to shatter through his rib cage, pounding it heavily. 

“You know who he is, don’t you? You’ve figured it out by now.” 

“He’s my Somebody.” 

“Right. Roxas, do you know what happens if you make contact with him? You short circuit.” 

“What?” 

“We split his soul between the two of you, and it’ll always try to become whole again. You seeking him out, you knowing where he is, you experiencing his life through this connection; if you give his soul a way to reassemble itself, it’ll choose the strongest host to live in, and completely vacate the other. Sora’s been sleep deprived and malnourished for weeks, are you sure he’s still alive? Because his soul clearly chose you.” 

His heart jumped up to his throat, fingertips growing cold. 

“Of course I am, I know he’s alive, I’ve seen him. He’s very weak, but he’s still here. I saw him just this morning.”

“Then…” A pause, brief, thoughtful. “Your husk could only fit so much of it.” 

“Is he, is he okay? Is he going to be okay? I need to find him, Axel, I--”

“He’s fine, Roxas; you said it yourself. He lived.” 

Both of his hands found Axel’s own, holding them tight, his chest filling up with air. 

“Please, please help me find them. I need to see him.” 

A turning of the head, eyes closed, one unit of self-composure away from rolling them. 

“Roxas, for the last time, they’re gone. They’re supposed to have been gone a lot longer than this. You’re not friends, and never will be; you’re not human, you don’t associate with humans, and the friends you have want to kill them both.” 

He opened his mouth to speak, but Axel cut him off, kept on talking. 

“Hanging around them is dangerous. If we know where you are, we know where they are, and we will try to get them. If you care about them, you’ll let them go. It’s the best thing they could’ve done for themselves.” 

His chest folded into itself, his throat cut through with a dagger, lungs shattered and bleeding down his veins. Fuck, no, God; the end was much closer than he had anticipated, the one who loved him despite everything gone. His forehead found the top of Axel’s chest as his eyes shut, squeezing hard, the ache in his chest acute and painful, his throat sore, the burning behind his eyelids dripping down tears. Axel was right; the two would’ve never been safe with him, he knew that, had always known, he just wished that Sora would’ve been successful at his third plan, the one where they could’ve all lived together. At the end of the day, though, he knew that it would all have come down to a choice; it would either have been the two humans or his best friend, and he could’ve never, ever have chosen anybody else over Axel again, not while he fucking breathed, no. This, a thousand times this over one more second away from Axel. The arms that enveloped him were warm, and held him tight under the veil of tobacco and cinnamon that permeated the night, his favorite scent. 

In the car, his backpack joined the trunk with a lot more of his other belongings that Axel had taken from the building, as well as his own possessions, the two of them taking the front seats for the very long ride. He had missed this, sitting next to Axel in this car, where they had spent so many of their hours together, hands meeting by the gear selector, soft music playing over the speakers. His chest still throbbed, and ached, his eyes not exactly dry yet, but he’d be alright, he knew so; it’d just take some time. Out the window, houses ran past, many of them, businesses and buildings, intersections and bright headlights, other cars joining them for the drive west, and a lot coming back around. He didn’t know how long the trip would take, but found that he didn’t really care, Axel’s company being his only life support necessary, the one lifeline that kept him from reaching the bottom. 

“We can’t keep this car, can we?” He asked, the full moon cutting through the dark, the houses starting to dwindle. 

“Of course we can.” 

He turned to glance at Axel, the profile of his face focused onto the road ahead. 

“I thought you quit the organization.” 

A quick glance over at him, and back ahead. 

“I didn’t. I tried, but Saix wouldn’t let me; he came up with something else for us.” 

“He knows about me?” 

“Yes. He wasn’t happy about it, but I drew a hard bargain. Xemnas doesn’t know.” 

His lips pursed, and he moved to look out the window instead, something in the pit of his stomach unsettled, an awkward fit. 

“What are we doing, then?” 

“Funding a sister location out west.” 

Huh. This turn of events didn’t exactly match up with his fantasy of running away unnoticed and starting completely over, but administering a business alongside Axel with a view of the beach didn’t particularly seem so awful, either. They would’ve become the new Xemnas and Saix, he supposed, spending a lot more time together in the building than out on the streets this time around, doing a lot less of risking their lives and a lot more pretending to be posh instead. In a way, though, he was okay with that. Maybe settling down could be fun, too. Maybe living in a wide two-story house with a pool in the backyard and polished stone steps leading down to the beach while spending an entire lifetime with Axel could be fun, too. 

“A few of the others are coming along, a group of four or five to get us started. It’ll be small at first, but soon we’ll be running a billion-dollar company.” 

“Right, sure.” He didn’t give a shit about that. “Will we be together the whole time?” 

He knew the answer to that already, but wanted to hear it from the redhead anyway. A quick glance from both of them directed at one another, the meeting of green with blue that broke them both into grins. 

“Roxas, I’m never letting you out of sight again. I’ll handcuff us together if I have to.” 

“I’d like to see you try.” 

The grin on Axel’s face widened, a sight that he didn’t know just how dearly he had missed until now. Certainly, this had been the superior choice, to pursue a future with the one who had always protected him, who had always put him first, who had sworn under oath to keep him safe. The parting, of course, still had been bitter-sweet, the note in his pocket a reminder of his other half, their distance a chance at survival. He knew that Sora would be okay with Riku, just as he knew that he’d be okay with Axel at his side, souls connected but narratives apart. He still didn’t adore the idea, but he understood it, and wished Sora all of the best; he loved him, after all. Squeezing Axel’s hand in his own, he leaned back onto the seat, already putting together a mental list of priorities to tackle at their first hotel stop, those handcuffs not too far from the top. 

* * *

 

Epilogue

“Do you think Riku’s crazy?” He asked, the pizza box empty at his side, the last slice greasy on his fingers. The lethargy with which he ate reminded himself of a lion far too full, playing with the prey, his feet moving absently as he nibbled, legs stretched out onto the bed. He turned the television off with his free hand, glancing at the open balcony doors where Axel stood, leaning on the railing, green eyes set on his face. So his question had been heard. 

“Why would you say that?” 

“He killed one of us like it wasn’t a big deal. I don’t think he even felt anything doing it. Is he crazy or not human?” 

“He’s someone you shouldn’t worry about.” Hand up, a long drag from the cigarette, uncaring. 

“Well, he knew about us. Not what we’re called, but who we are; he knew we don’t have hearts and we can’t feel, like... Are you sure he’s not a problem?” 

A long breath out, smoke over the railing. 

“He comes from an influential group, Roxas. Politicians that put themselves first; his family has been our client for generations. He really can’t do anything with the information that he has, except buy our services. We’re fine.” 

His stomach churned, pizza getting caught in his throat. He put the last half-eaten slice down. 

“He hates us. The way he kills makes me believe that the warehouse wasn’t his first time.” 

“Are you implying he’s some sort of vigilante?” Spoken around a half-smirk, amusement brightening Axel’s face. 

“Maybe. I mean, he found the warehouse and fought his way into it, didn’t he? That takes skill.” 

Axel shrugged, flicking the cigarette end off the balcony along with the smoke in his lungs, the smirk slowly fading. The ease in his posture and the certainty in his tone were the perfect combination of soothing that always managed to keep Roxas calm. Reassurance was always appreciated, especially to someone who had always been very prone to panicking. 

“Roxas, the moment his daddy pulls the plug on him, he really won’t be able to do much else, especially not any significant damage. If he’s some vigilante who wants to get back at his family, then leaning on them for shelter and safety is not the first step. He’s a kid, let him be a superhero if he wants; it doesn’t affect us, really.” 

“You sound like a dick. He killed our friend in cold blood.” 

Another shrug. Axel walked in and slid the balcony doors closed behind himself, the sounds of the night barred outside. 

“Death is always a possibility in our line of business. Lexaeus shouldn’t have been such an idiot.” 

“He wasn’t, I’m just very good at lying.” He grinned, wiping his hands on a napkin as Axel circled the bed to his respective side, currently taken up by the pizza box. His allegation had the redhead smiling. 

“Dangerous.” Axel took the box and placed it onto the nightstand. “Guess I’ll sleep with a dagger tonight.” 

He laughed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to DustyCushin for the support! Thank you so much. :)


End file.
